WARANGAL: At a time when people are trying to limp back to normalcy, after the Central and State governments announced multiple relaxations, the private financiers and chit fund company owners have returned to haunt them demanding repayment of debts, loans and instalment amounts.
As it hasn’t been long since people started returning to work and small-scale traders resumed their businesses, they are finding it hard to repay the lenders, considering that they made hardly any money during the lockdown period. It is learnt that the lenders are mounting pressure on the debtors to repay the pending debts in one go.
According to sources, most borrowers, like auto-rickshaw drivers and small-scale vendors, have not been able to pay the instalments for the past three months due to lack of employment and/or business. Most people who take loans from financiers repay the amount as monthly or daily instalments. Meanwhile, those who invest their hard-earned money in chit fund firms also follow a monthly-installment pattern, albeit the ideas and processes followed by both are different.
However, as all shops, commercial establishments and private offices were shut down due to the Covid outbreak and subsequent lockdown, people lost their sources of income and are now struggling to earn daily bread. As a result, they are requesting the private financiers to provide exemption for three more months to repay pending instalments.
Speaking to Express, N Sampath Kumar, an auto driver who holds an account at a private finance company in Hanamakonda and borrowed money from the firm to buy a new auto, said that the firm is mounting pressure on him demanding repayment of all pending dues. Meanwhile, lenders requested debtors to understand their situation as well. The investors are pressurising us to repay their money, which we can do only by recovering loan and pending debt amounts from the people, they said.