Chit Gate Slur On Govt Bhubaneswar : 27/August/2013 Blaming the media and the opposition parties for spreading misconceptions regarding the multi-crore chit fund scam, Finance Minister, Prasanna Acharya today said that none of the Ponzi firms were registered under the Odisha Chit Fund Bill, 1982. Responding to the allegations levelled by Opposition Congress in the Assembly, Acharya said, “The organisations which are under scanner for having swindled public money are all registered under different acts, either Companies Act, 1980 or Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act. The Registrar of Co-operative Societies do not have any control over their activities”. The Chief Whip of Congress, Prasad Harichandan, however criticised the State government and held it responsible for the scam. He said that the Chit Fund Act, 1982 does not have any rules and notifications to make it effective. “Still I reiterate the situation is grave and the State government cannot escape its responsibility. The government is working on returning the hard earned money of depositors. We cannot bring any solution overnight. Nor even politicising the issue will solve it,” the Finance Minister said. He added that the Odisha Depositors Protection (Financial Establishments) Bill, 2011 has become an Act with the assent of the President. The Act is capable enough to book culprits and recover the deposited money from them. Secondly, the government has already made budgetary provisions for a corpus fund. However, expressing dissatisfaction over the answer of the Finance Minister, the Congress members staged a walkout. The debate which continued for around three hours and 38 minutes saw war of words and allegations levelled against ministers and members of the treasury bench. Names of ministers like Kalpataru Das, Arun Sahu, Damodar Rout, Chief Whip, Prabhat Tripathy, and Deputy Chief Whip, Sanjay Dasburma cropped up. An independent member alleged that Advocate General, Ashok Mohanty had purchased a building from accused Pradip Sethi of AT Group at a cost of Rs 1 crore. He added that Sethi was provided shelter by the Advocate General. Reacting sharply to the allegations, Panchayatiraj Minister, Kalpataru Das said that if his involvement with any of the chit fund scam was proved, he would quit politics. The debate started with an amusing remark made by the Congress Chief Whip, who compared Abu Hassan (Alibaba) and 40 thieves with the Chief Minister and his band of minister. “As the King of Golabad, Abu Hassan was the head of 40 thieves, similarly, the Chief Minister is involved in a mega loot of public money. When the State government enacted the Odisha Co-operative Societies Act without making any provision of control of the government on it, it opened the flood gate of scam and scandals. One after another several chit fund organisations took birth and started looting public money.” Giving details of these societies, Prasad said there are 1634 self help co-operative societies which include 367 credit cooperative, 612 multi-purpose and 185 marketing co-operative societies. The chit fund is a government sponsored programme which did not keep any control over management, penalty and money circulation provisions, he alleged. Although, the government was advised time and again by the RBI or Registrar of Co-operative Societies to undertake some provisions, instead of paying any heed, it rather violated the provisions of the act. Eventually, the chit fund scam surfaced and a number of people committed suicide. The situation here is worse than that of West Bengal, he said. Constitution of a Rs 300 crore corpus fund without fund allocation is a hoax, alleged Prasad. Giving an account of steps taken by the State government, Government Chief Whip, Prabhat Tripathy said till date seizure worth Rs 127 crore from banks accounts, Rs 86 lakh cash, 217.5 gram of gold, 427 acres of land, farm of 21.26 acres etc. have been made. Senior member of BJD, AP Satapathy said ‘influential’ term covers politicians. RP Swain suggested only poor and middle class people who are affected by the scam should be given back their dues. Among others, Congress members–SP Pramanik, NK Das, SS Saluja and leader of the Opposition, Bhupinder Singh participated in the deliberations.
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 09:52:14 +0000
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