BENGALURU: Several hundred students protested outside a placement and edtech company in Bengaluru on Wednesday for allegedly swindling them of thousands of rupees with the promise of jobs.
According to the students, the company conducted campus placements at several colleges and promised them jobs at a software company based in Bengaluru. Promising a full-time job following a training period of six months, the students alleged that the company had taken out several loans in their names and forced them to pay the loans during the training period.
One of the protesting students, Tamil, said she had been dealing with the issue for at least a year. “They had taken a loan in my name for Rs 1.9 lakh with an additional Rs 40,000 interest. The ‘training’ they had promised was just showing us videos online. This training period is what they said they had taken the loans for to pay for our stipends,” she said.
The students also alleged that they had been told earlier that they will be able to leave their jobs, but later were told that they will have to pay Rs 50,000 plus their stipends if they wanted to quit. “I had only joined the job on the basis that I could leave it later on. They then suddenly said that we have to pay a huge amount. I’m the fourth batch of students going through this company; there’s nearly 2,000 students who are,” she said.
Kavya, another student representing the protesters, approached the company later in the day. According to her, the company had stated that they will resolve the issue in a few days.