With a large part of south Bengal still reeling under the multi-thousand crore Saradha chit-fund scam, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday introduced State-run small savings scheme to attract small-time depositors as also to insulate the poor and gullible investors of the State from shady small-saving companies.
The scheme likely to take off by October would involve about 24,000 agents who would work door-to-door to draw investment. launching the plan mooted earlier in April, the Chief Minister on Thursday said the Government-owned West Bengal Financial Development Corporation would manage the scheme through four nationalised banks: United Bank of India, State Bank of India, UCO Bank and Allahabad Bank. WBFIDC is a deposit-taking non-banking finance company.
The scheme would have a lock-in period of three months and the investors would be able to invest between Rs 1,000 and Rs 1 lakh for a period between one and five years, the Chief Minister said, adding in case of “family schemes” Rs 5 lakh could be invested. Though there would not be any additional incentive, the scheme was likely to be tagged to some kind of insurance scheme either Government or private, WBFIDC chairman Abhiroop Sarkar said.
“It is a fully secured Government scheme where the people can invest without fear of losing their money,” Banerjee said, adding the interest the Government would provide would match the rate offered by the banks. Promptly rejecting the scheme, the Opposition Marxists said it was a ploy to assuage the feelings of those hurt by the chit-fund scam. Questioning the timing of the scheme, CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakrabarty said, “It has been launched with an eye on the elections in order to divert people’s attention from the chit-fund scam that has ruined lakhs of people in the State.”
On the 24,000 agents to be appointed to draw investment he wondered whether “these people would be utilised during the election campaigns as was done in the Saradha case” where thousands of its agents doubled up as Trinamool workers. The Chief Minister had mooted the scheme close on the heels of the Saradha scam getting public apparently to tap the huge small-saving market as also to protect the gullible investors, particularly in rural Bengal from falling prey to the ponzi fund swindlers
The Justice Shyamal Sen Commission set up by Banerjee to inquire into the scam had received about 18 lakh complaints which could take the total scam amount to more than Rs 1 lakh crore.