BHOPAL: Nobody knows the volume of the money siphoned off by the chit fund companies in the state and also the number of victims who fell prey to these companies. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan made the announcement in the Cabinet on Tuesday that around Rs 800 crore had been recovered from the companies by attaching their assets and had been returned to around 50,000 people.
Recently, the chief minister launched a drive against the fraudsters and asked the police department to help the victims to recover their money. It is estimated that over 75,000 ‘investors’ who are daily-wage workers, housemaids, hawkers, small shopowners and others were cheated by the companies in the state.
It is claimed that these companies had siphoned off around Rs 40,000 crore of hard-earned money from the victims. The special director-general, chit fund, corporative and other financial fraud investigation, Rajendra Mishra, has started organising camps at the district level where the victims are coming to file complaints.
D-G Mishra informed Free Press that the guidelines of the Supreme Court had been given to all the district units on the recovery of the amount from the companies. He added that, when a complaint is filed, the SHO has the responsibility of recovering the amount within 15 days and, within a week’s time, he has to inform the victim about the case. If some special issues crop up, the SHO can take six weeks’ more time to recover the money from the companies.
He added that the camps are being organised at the district level and the money is being directly given back to the victims by the company at the camps. Now, the SHOs have been instructed to register cases against the company owners, along with the commission agents.
Earlier the police used to register the case against the middlemen and spare the owner, or the kingpin of the racket. Till date, around 300 cases have been registered against the kingpins.
Even cops were cheated
Hopes had risen as the people had started getting their amounts back. Even police personnel were cheated by the companies. In one district, around 100 police personnel were cheated by a company. Similar stories are heard across the state, in which the companies have cheated policemen. These police personnel deposited all their savings with the companies and, now, they are running from pillar to post just as the others are.
‘SPs, SHOs sleeping’
The superintendents of police and SHOs of more than 40 districts are still ‘sleeping’. In these districts, not even a single case has been solved by them. Although the CM and the DGP are monitoring the programme, some SPs and their staff are sitting ‘comfortably’.
