Odisha chit fund victims’ body meets Jaitley; submits 11-point charter of demands

Sambad English Bureau Published On : Dec 17, 2014 at 10:41 PM

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
New Delhi, Dec 17:

A delegation of Arthika Sansthamanankadwara Khshatigrastanka Milita Mancha (ASKMM), the organisation for justice to the victims of the Odisha chit fund scam, met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and submitted an 11 point memorandum to him here today.

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Among the major demands in the memorandum were expeditious identification of scam victims and return of money lost by them, besides an unfettered investigation of the scam. CPI national secretary and MP D Raja joined the leaders during the meeting with Jaitley.

The Finance minister assured the delegation that the Central government would take steps to ensure that chit fund companies are unable to take the people for a ride in future and expedite the ongoing probe into the scam, Manch spokesperson Jayanta Das said.

“The chit fund companies have used the loopholes in the existing laws to exploit innocent investors. We demand the enactment of a stringent law to ensure such a scam does not happen anywhere again,” said the advisor of ASKMM and Editor of leading Odia daily ‘Sambad’ Soumya Ranjan Patnaik.

Later, the Manch held a public meeting where a call was given for a reletless fight from ‘Palli to Delhi’ (Village to Delhi) till all the victims of the chit fund scam get their money back.

Among others, Sambad editor Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, ASKMM convenor Jayant Das and Ama Odisha leader Suparno Satapathy addressed the gathering.

It may be noted that the state government made provision for a Rs 300 crore corpus fund in the supplementary budget passed by the Assembly recently while ASKMM is trying to make sure the compensation reaches the intended beneficiaries who are not aware about financial policies of government. Recently, it announced the ‘Mission Delhi’ to ensure the voices reach the Union government.

ASKMM has been working for the past two years and organizing protests and rallies in front of Vidhan Sabha and submitting memorandums to pressurize the government to return the chit fund scam victims their money and punishment to the fraudsters.