MCA starts investor awareness campaign against fraud schemes

Amid rising instances of common man being duped by illegal money-pooling activities, Ministry of Corporate Affairs has started tapping various platforms, including visual media, to sensitise investors from falling prey to fraudulent investment schemes.

To reach out to larger number of people, the awareness messages would be propagated through various regional languages besides Hindi and English, a Ministry official said.

Apart from the visual platform, awareness campaigns would be done through radio, Internet and mobile phone mediums. Soon, SMSes would also be sent out to the public at large advising them to take informed decisions before investing their money, he noted.

These initiatives mark a shift from the Ministry's practice of having only investor awareness programmes in different parts of the country.

According to the official, the campaigns would also focus on people in rural areas, who are mostly prone to fall prey to dubious money-collecting schemes. In this regard, the government would soon have messages, advising people against fraudulent schemes, on the back of Post Office passbooks, he added.

"From this month, we have started having tickers with messages in Hindi and English for investors on Doordarshan channel. Soon, the regional Doordarshan Kendras will be translating them into regional languages for wider reach," the official noted.

The latest initiative assumes importance against the backdrop of the government cracking down on activities that defraud investors of their money in the wake of scam perpetrated by Saradha group in West Bengal.

According to the official, the Ministry would partner with state-run BSNL to send out SMS alerts to the subscribers apart from having "audio alerts" on All India Radio.

Also, discussions are progressing with Google for having pop ups of investor awareness messages on the Internet search engine, he added.

Depending on the scale and requirement for using these mediums, the Ministry might also seek additional funds from the Finance Ministry.