Naveen seeks Presidential assent for anti-chit fund Bill

BHUBANESWAR: With Opposition Congress and BJP announcing plans to make chit fund fraud a poll issue, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today wrote to the Union Home Minister seeking his intervention for an early Presidential assent to a Bill protecting depositors' interests.

"In view of the urgency, I am drawing your personal attention for expediting Presidential assent to the Odisha Protection of Interest of Depositors (in financial establishment) Bill, 2011," Patnaik said in the letter to Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde.

Odisha Assembly had passed the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (in financial establishments), on December 17, 2011 and it was sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs by the Governor's secretariat on April 3, 2012.

After examination and inter-ministerial consultation, the MHA sought some clarifications from the state government on the Bill on December 27, 2012, which the government sent to the MHA on April 2, 2013.

The Bill, however, is yet to get Presidential assent, the Chief Minister said.

The Bill contained extensive safeguards for protecting small investors from fraudulent financial entities, he said.

Stating that unscrupulous financial entities were duping small investors in the state, Patnaik said, these fly-by-night operators took advantage of the prevailing regulatory weaknesses and gaps.

They lured unsuspecting investors by promising extraordinarily high returns and then closed shop after a period of time, he added.