The Nilgiris District Legal Services Authority (DLSA), the district bar association and a public sector bank came together to assist the family of a 28-year-old man, who died of a cardiac arrest last year, by closing the education loan he had obtained.

As the parents and siblings of the man did not have the means to repay the loan, the bank decided to waive most of the outstanding amount.

Officials from the DLSA said S. Balamurali (28) from Upper Bazaar here had borrowed ₹1.3 lakh from the Udhagamandalamy branch of the Oriental Bank of Commerce in 2011. After completing his MBA degree, Balamurali went abroad in search of work and returned in 2017. He died of cardiac arrest on August 24, 2017. His mother, S. Shanthi, said the family did not have the means to pay the outstanding amount.

K. Suresh Kumar, Secretary of the DLSA, Nilgiris, said that as the bank wanted to close the outstanding loan before going into litigation, the DLSA arranged for talks between the bank, the family of Balamurali and the bar association.

“Mr. Balamurali owed the bank ₹1.08 lakh, and the bank decided to waive the majority of the loan on compassionate grounds,” said a LSA official, while the remaining ₹10,000 required to close the loan was paid by Suresh Kumar, Secretary of the DLSA, K. Sri Hari, the Nilgiris district bar association president and the manager of the Oriental Bank of Commerce. Balamurali's mother, Shanthi, thanked the bank as well as the DLSA and the bar association for their gesture.