Topper denied bank loan, can’t pay college fees

The 18-year-old T. Deepika of Jollypudur village, valiantly beat poverty and social pressure of child marriage to score 1145 marks out of 1200 in the plus-2 exam and emerged the district second topper. She got admission to the course of her choice-agriculture science and has joined the Anbil Dharmalingam Agriculture College and Research institute in Trichy. But her impoverished parents, who are labourers, are unable to pay even her first semester fee of Rs 40,000. Curiously, the Vanniar girl hails from the home district of Tamil Nadu’s Higher education minister, P. Palaniappan and the constituency of former Union health minister and PMK leader Dr Anbumani Ramadoss. Her father is a loadman in the market and her mother a construction worker.

“After I completed my Class 10, my relatives wanted to marry me off. But I refused to get married. And my parents too supported me,” she says. Then, she finished her plus-2 with an impressive score and knocked on the doors of the Indian Bank branch at Boomidi in Dharmapuri for loan.