Saradha chit fund scam: Depositors in lurch as more firms down shutters

KOLKATA: The Saradha contagion is spreading quite fast in West Bengal, with over two-dozen money-circulating companies shuttering in the last two weeks even as the number of suicides rises by the day despite chief minister Mamata Banerjee promising a compensation package.

About 90,000 Saradha investors have submitted claim documents to the Shyamal Sen panel, formed to investigate the scam and repay depositors. But there are millions in the state’s semi-urban and rural districts who have lost money to other dubious entities as one company after another is succumbing to premature redemption pressure.

There is no official statistics on the number of companies indulging in public fund mobilisation without financial strength, but quite a few of those have shuttered and their promoters have not been seen in public since the Saradha group went bust. Many like Annex Infrastructure India, Akashdip Project, Bardhaman Sunmarg, Hello India, Kisan Welfare Society, Lords Trade Deal, Royal Marketing, Suraha Micro Finance and Torsha Agro Project have sunk in the last fortnight, records with the state government show.

The blow-up of the so-called chit funds is denting Mamata Banerjee’s image who had projected herself as a better administrator than the Communist government who more-than-aquarter-century rule she ended.

“This financial scam has not only rendered countless depositors penniless, it will also have severe social impact as a sizeable chunk of the agents employed by these companies have lost their livelihoods,” said Nirmalya Bhattacharya, a trustee of Citizens for Justice, a non-political forum planning to conduct a sample survey on money-circulating entities operating in the state. Ever since Saradha Realty India collapsed, nearly 20 people committed suicide in the state, police records show.