CHENNAI: These days, K Nagammal makes regular trips to a moneylender at Porur, who promised to lend her Rs 5,000 for 60 per cent interest. “I am dependent on this amount to even buy the application forms for my daughter,” she says. But the teenage girl next to her was optimistic. “I want to study nursing. I would not only help people in need, but also give some rest to my mother,” says K Saila. She had just passed the Class XII exams, scoring 923 marks out of 1,200.
Leaning on a wall beside her is her father’s photo — the man who brought the family to the city from their native village in AP, nine years ago, with dreams of a better future. But soon, B Kannaiah, a manual scavenger, died while clearing a septic tank in an apartment at Velachery.
Since then, Nagammal has been working as an housekeeping staff in an IT company for a salary of Rs 6,000, half of which goes as interest for debts she takes from local money lenders. As much as Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh is the estimated college fees for nursing education. “But already none is ready in this area to lend me even Rs 5,000 and only a lender at Porur has promised,” says Nagammal, who for now has only hope to surmount the challenges and help her daughter get a college admission. no compensation yet for father’s death.