Demanding that he take responsibility for the lapses in law enforcement and poor regulation, the Congress on Wednesday urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to take immediate steps to ensure relief to hapless investors in chit fund companies by announcing a corpus of funds to compensate them.
In a letter to the Chief Minister, Pradesh Congress Committee president Niranjan Patnaik also asked him to investigate speculations that some BJD MlAs may be providing protection to chit fund companies in the State.
The letter said, “In the last decade, there has been a phenomenal growth of various non-banking and microfinance institutions in Odisha. These organisations are expected to be governed either under the regulatory framework of the RBI or of the cooperative laws.”
“As is apparent by now, they have flouted laid-down rules, announced various Ponzi Schemes and defrauded lakhs of small depositors of crores of rupees causing misery and hardship. Such incidents of cheating and fraud are not new and yet your Government has been a mute spectator, intervening with criminal investigations only after people have lost their deposits,” the letter added.
The OPCC president asked the CM, “I request you to kindly take a strict and serious view in the matter. I specifically demand that the Government take the liability for mistakes in law enforcement and poor regulation and compensate the depositors to mitigate their hardship partially.”
Already, the Government of West Bengal has announced a corpus of funds to compensate depositors, and “I hope you will also show equal amount of empathy because your Government has to take responsibility for mistakes by its functionaries,” the PCC chief said in his letter.
“I am sure that you have heard of various speculations about involvement of some of your MlAs in providing protection to some of these institutions, specifically Saradha in Puri district,” he noted.
“If true, this calls for a thorough probe and exemplary punishment against the MlAs concerned. But I am keeping away from the speculation till investigations reveal the truth,” Niranjan Patnaik said in the letter.