THOOTHUKUDI: In the wake of rise in Kandhuvatti (usury) cases, there has been a huge demand on nationalised banks to chalk out schemes to lend money to petty shopkeepers, who mostly rely on money lenders to fund their businesses.
According to official sources, street vendors, hawkers, small merchants, pushcart sellers, dough sellers, auto drivers among others, are the ones who fall prey to the Kandhuvatti mafia easily. In case of personal or business emergencies, they borrow Rs 10,000 to lakhs, accepting to pay exorbitant interests, in spite of struggling with poverty.
Activists opined that operation Kandhuvatti, which was launched to curb money lender menace in the state, has been an absolute failure on the part of the government as it could not mitigate the number of suicides or the atrocities. "Kandhuvatti lenders take possession of borrower's documents and jewellery unlawfully, and hike interest rates at their will. Yet, they get away scot-free as no FIRs are registered despite several complaints, because of the nexus between the police and money lenders," said an activist.
Advocate Ayyalusamy, who has been protesting against the usurers for a decade, told TNIE that promissory notes and bank cheques have become the sole weapon for lenders to legitimise fleecing exorbitant interests from the poor. "They carefully collect a number of signed cheques from the debtors as security, which are sufficient to recover the money back. They then deposit the cheques at the banks, filling it with more than the borrowed money, and make it bounce, so that they manage to implicate a cheque fraudulent case against the debtor," he said.
According to the activists, an amendment of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Charging Exorbitant Interest Act, 2003 is necessary to ensure the recovery of promissory notes, bank cheques or signed stamp papers, which are in possession of the money lenders, when an FIR is registered against them. The government should also order nationalised and public sector banks to role out schemes to lend money to poor businessmen, so as to prevent them from approaching usurers, they added. Here, it is pertinent to note that Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan had earlier urged bankers to lend loans to petty shop keepers to curtail Kandhuvatti atrocities.
As political parties are gearing up for the Lok Sabha polls, they should keep in mind to include such schemes in their election promises, said activist J Michael Anto Jeenious, adding that the Centre has to devise loan schemes for street vendors and hawkers, instead of waiving off loans worth lakhs and crores to save defaulting industrialists.
Meanwhile, a banking professional of TMB bank told TNIE that they are granting a loan of `10,000 to small vendors at 8 % interest, once the vendors show permits issued by civic bodies, under the Prime Minister Street Vendor's Atma Nirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) scheme launched recently. Besides, Agaram accounts for shop keepers has been rolled out after Tamilisai Soundararajan's push to provide credit to poor vendors, he added.
"In 2007, the RBI had urged bankers to provide credit up to `6,500 at an annual concessional rate of interest of 4% to the weaker section, under the Differential Rate of Interest (DRI) scheme. It was an absolute failure due to poor monitoring. Also, most people did not have banking accounts then. However, there is a fear among the public that taking petty business loans under PM SVANidhi would hamper government sops including mahalir urimai thogai," he added on conditions of anonymity.