Congress demands Naveen Patnaik's statement on return of money to ponzi scam victims

BHUBANESWAR: Opposition Congress today sought a clarification from Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Odisha government's plan to return money to poor investors duped by different ponzi scheme companies in the state.

The issue was raised during the Zero Hour of the assembly by Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh.

"Six months have already passed since the state government announced to make payment to the depositors within three months," Singh pointed out.

Singh, who addressed a rally of investors in front of the assembly yesterday, took the issue to the House and sought a ruling from Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat on his demand for a reply by the Chief Minister on the issue.

Alleging that the government was not clear on how many ponzi scheme companies had cheated depositors in the state, Singh said it had earlier put the number of such companies at 134, but was now saying that there were only 84 of them.

He claimed that the state government was not serious about return of money to the investors and the judicial commission probing the ponzi scam had not been provided with additional manpower though it has received more than 10 lakh petitions.

"The hapless victims of chit funds are coming to me as they are not able to meet the Chief Minister. If they try to meet Chief Minister, they will be beaten up by the police. Under such circumstances, the Chief Minister should give a reply in the assembly," Singh said.

The Congress leader also cited an instance of Darlipali village in Sundargarh district where the ponzi scheme companies duped the people of Rs 200 crore. The people of that village and adjoining area had received the invested money as compensation for giving their land to a power company.