The Opposition Congress on Wednesday sought to know from Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik the Government’s plan to return money to poor investors duped by different chit fund companies in the State.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Assembly, Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh said six months have already passed after the State Government announced that the depositors will be paid within three months.
Singh, who addressed a rally of investors in front of the Assembly on Tuesday, took the issue to the House and sought a ruling from Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat on his demand for a reply by the Chief Minister.
Alleging that the Government was not clear on how many ponzi scheme companies had cheated depositors in the State, Singh said it had earlier put the number of such companies at 134, but was now saying that there were only 84.
He claimed that the State Government was not serious about the poor investors and the judicial commission probing the scam had not been provided with additional manpower though it has received more than 10 lakh petitions.
“The hapless victims of chit funds are coming to me as they are not able to meet the Chief Minister. If they try to meet Chief Minister, they will be beaten up by the police,” he said.
The desperate investors are meeting the MLAs of their areas and holding rally in the city demanding refund of their money. The Congress leader also cited an instance of Darlipali village in Sundargarh district where the chit fund companies duped the people of `200 crore.
The people of that village and adjoining area had received the invested money as compensation for giving their land to a power company.
The Chief Minister had said that a cell will be opened in all the police stations to receive complaints on chit fund scam. Neither the proposed cell has been opened nor the police stations are accepting complaints from the victims, he said.
“The House has the right to know from the Government about its plan to compensate the investors,” Singh said and requested the Speaker to direct the Chief Minister to give a reply on the issue.