Chennai: In its ‘urgent appeal to RBI and Finance Minister’, Consortium of Indian Associations has said immediate loan moratorium should be provided for all, without interest.
In a statement, CIA convenor K E Raghunathan said, RBI gave restructuring plan option on 5 May 2021 for loans taken and the Finance Minister has now extended ECGLS 1.0 loans also to be restructured for those availing this. This was supposed to be an alternative option for moratorium sought. However, majority of the MSMEs and individuals ask for clear moratorium extension without interest.
He added: “Majority of Individuals and self-employed individuals survive every month with gold loans especially during last 10 days of the month, for rotation and basic needs. They have no scope for earning during this lockdown period and their loans cannot also be restructured. How will they survive? And most of these are with private lenders. Government shall immediately ask nationalised banks to take over such gold loans, waive interest during this lockdown period and give them a flexible option to redeem. We have over 65 per cent of the population under this category.”
According to Raghunathan, many young graduates passed out during last three years have not been able to secure jobs and they are under tremendous worries on future.
RBI must immediately waive all such educational loans for three years from any repayment and interest.