The arrest of BJD leaders by the CBI for their nexus with the tainted chit fund firms, report of the Supreme Court appointed central empowered committee (CEC) on brazen irregularities by miners and instances of land grabbing by influential people in the state have armed the Opposition Congress to counter the ruling party in the winter session of the Odisha assembly, scheduled to begin from November 20.
As the Naveen Patnaik government is bedeviled with the chit fund scam, the Congress led Opposition is set to ride on people’s angst to corner the ruling party.
“People are really anguished at the turn of events in the chit fund scam. If you take their feedback, there is near consensus that they want return of their money embezzled by the unscrupulous players. The arrest of one or two political leaders has not appeased them, they want refund of their money,” said veteran Congress leader and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the assembly Narsingha Mishra.
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Mishra, who visited the Bhubaneswar office of Business Standard today, said, “Though the state government had declared a corpus fund of Rs 300 crore to return money to the depositors, no action has been taken in this regard. Similarly, the state government has promulgated Odisha Protection of Interest of Depositors (in financial establishments) Act, but it is yet to use its provisions to auction the seized properties of chit fund firms and pay back the affected people”.
Mishra cited the example of neighbouring West Bengal where steps have been initiated to refund money to the duped investors. Last month, capital markets regulator Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had announced to conduct an e-auction of land and buildings of a company that had garnered funds through illegal money circulation schemes.
“The chit fund scam has affected 2.5 million families in the state or nearly 10 million people, representing a fourth of Odisha’s population. This government cannot play with the sentiments of such a sizeable part of our population,” he said. “In the upcoming assembly session, we would question the government’s cavalier approach to get back investors money swindled by the chit fund players,” Mishra added.
This time too, the Opposition Congress would focus its tirade on the ruling party over the large scale irregularities in the mining sector. Fueled by the recent CEC report, the Congress is gearing up to train its guns on the besieged government.
“Irregularities in the mining activity over the years is also going to be a key issue for us. We have the CEC’s report which, on many counts, has faulted the state government for wrongdoings in mining”, said the LoP.
In its report, the CEC faulted the state government for brazen illegal mining at Thakurani mines held by Sarada Mines Ltd. It also accused the state government of issuing transport permits for iron ore mined in excess of approved limits.
Together with the scams in chit fund and mining, the Congress is also set to mount attack on a recent Ordinance by the state government to prohibit land grabbing. The Ordinance seeks to make land grabbing a cognizable and non-bailable offence. The maximum penalty on a person can be up to seven years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 20,000.
The state government also approved amendment of various provisions of the Odisha Prevention of Land Encroachment Act, 1972. Encroachment would be treated as cognizable offence and land settled with homeless and landless persons would be non-transferable for 20 years.
“The recent actions of the state government to check land grabbing and encroachment are not in the interest of the poor and homeless. It will give undue scope to revenue officers to harass the poor. Let the government take action against the influential people accused of land grabbing, but in case of unobjectionable government land, the poor encroachers should be given land settlement rights,” said Mishra.
