Trinamool Voices Opposition After Govt Tables Chit Fund Amendment Bill In Lok Sabha With New Safeguards For Investors

The Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur yesterday (18 November) introduced the Chit Funds (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in the Lok Sabha on what is the first day of the winter session, reports India Today.

The Trinamool has voiced it opposition against the bill and has demanded that it be scrapped.

In recent years a number of Trinamool leaders have been implicated in the Saradha Chit Fund scam which affected some 17 lakh investors in West Bengal. Largely low-income depositors from rural West Bengal were affected and those running the scheme at the top were believed to have close links with the ruling political establishment.

The amendment bill includes a mechanism to ensure that depositors whose money had been taken are justly compensated; the same would be done in a timely fashion by attaching properties and other assets belonging to the defaulting entities.

Under new provisions the ceiling of the chit amount would be increased from Rs1 lakh to Rs 3 lakh for individuals, and Rs 3 lakh to Rs 18 lakh. The presence of at least two subscribers (in-person/video conference) is to be recorded by the foreman who's own commission would be raised from 5 per cent. to 7 per cent.

The report goes on to say that it "seeks to enable the foreman to have a right to a lien against the credit balance in other non-prized chits, and to amend clause (b) of section 85, so as to confer power upon the state government to specify the amount by notification, up to which any chit fund shall be exempted under the Act."