Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa has a new headache – feeding the scam-hit Emus. The government today said that it has allocated Rs one crore to the Animal Husbandry Department, to provide food to these starving birds. It is not clear if this is a one-time allocation or one of the many such dole-outs the department may need to rear these flightless birds long enough to recover at least a part of the hundreds of crores riding on them.
Thousands of birds, including few-weeks old chicks, have been left unattended in farms in the Erode-Salem belt. Farm owners took flight after government ordered raids on the illegal investment schemes such as buy-backs and circular trading that were being run around the running birds.
"I have directed police to return the money of the depositors by confiscating the property of the Emu farm owners through court,” the chief minister said in a statement.
Though the state government has been going out of its way to help the birds and the investors, the financial sector regulators such as RBI and Sebi have turned a blind eye to the developments. Encouraged by the regulatory apathy, similar illegal schemes have begun to surface in other parts of the country.
As the government move resulted in Emus being left without care, they began to die without food and even started killing each other. Following this, the Chief Minister had directed the Animal Husbandry Department to accord due care for the birds. Veterinarians from the Department and Namakkal Veterinary College were assigned to provide medical care to these Birds.
The Department would rear the chicks which would be sold once they grow. Part of the money will be used for covering the fodder expenses incurred by the department and the balance distributed among depositors, she had said.
However, selling of Emus may not be that easy, say farmers. With no proper market for Emu meat or other Emu products, slaughtering them may not realise even a fraction of the amount riding on these birds.
According to government officials, while the preliminary estimate is over 25,000 people being cheated by the farm owners for a total Rs 500 crore, the numbers are expected to go up as new complaints are received everyday.
Cases have been registered against promoters of Queen Emu Farms, Alma Emu Farm, Susi Emu Farm and TVS Emu Farm under Section 120 (b), 406 and 420 of IPC and Section 5 of Tamil Nadu Protection of Interest of Depositors (TNPID) Act 1997.
Among the biggest is Susi Emu Farms, which had around 10,000 investors. The farm owner even introduced a buy-back scheme to attract marginal farmers who were in crisis. Owner of the company, who was travelling in Rs 1.5 crore is now behind the bars.
These companies even managed to rope in film stars to endorse their brand. For instance, Susi Emu was endorsed by popular film star-turned politician Sarath Kumar, a member in the legislative assembly. They are also now facing legal charges for endorsing these farms.
The owners had been swindling the investor money and not using it for expansion of the business, or even for maintaining the birds in a proper manner, officials said.