Saradha chit fund scam: More than three lakh depositors submit applications

KOLKATA: More than three lakh people who lost their hard-earned money by investing those with the tainted Saradha Group, have submitted their applications to the Shyamal Sen Commission to get back their money. The commission is flooded with applications which are pouring in everyday at their the New Town finance hub office and a senior commission official told ET on Friday that it will be extremely difficult for them to review all these applications within the next six months.

After the multi-crore Saradha scam broke out in West Bengal in March, Mamata Banerjee’s government has set up this commission headed by Shyamal Sen, former West Bengal governor and former acting chief justice of Calcutta High Court to consider prayers from the investors and even agents of Saradha group who have lost their money after the company had collapsed. The group’s chief Sudipta Sen and two of his close associates Debjani Mukherjee and Manoj Nagel are still under the custody of Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate which is now probing the case.

According to officials of the Shyamal Sen commission, it has received 2,96,488 applications only from the districts of North and South 24-Parganas. But the commission has managed to hear only 600 applicants till Thursday. "We will hear cases of another 95 applicants on Friday," a senior commission official told ET. The finance hub office of the commission will receive applications from the victims living in south Bengal districts. "On Wednesday, we have received a maximum 63245 applications in our finance hub office," the official informed.

The commission has also set up it’s office at Matigara under Darjeeling district in north Bengal to receive applications from the affected persons living in six north Bengal districts like Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, North and South Dinajpur and Malda. The Matigara office has so far received 9865 applications till Thursday.

Many poor people who had invested their life’s savings with the Saradha group have already committed suicides after they failed to run their families due to acute financial crisis. Till Friday, the state administrative headquarters in Writers’ Buildings has received reports of 20 cases of suicides from different parts of West Bengal.