Several people, who have deposited money with Sahara India, staged a protest in front of the Odisha Assembly in Bhubaneswar on Saturday demanding the intervention of the State government in getting repayment of their deposits with interest.
According to the protestors, more than 20 lakh depositors from Odisha have invested around Rs 2000 crore with Sahara India. Though, maturity period of the deposits has ended and they have applied for the repayment of their savings, the company is allegedly dillydallying disbursement of the money.
“We had deposited our hard-earned money under different schemes of the company. The maturity period of our deposit has ended. We have been waiting for the repayment from the company for a long time,” said a protestor.
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“Now, we are in urgent need of money, but the company is in no mood to repay us. We are completely helpless,” he said.
The protestors have sought the State government’s intervention for getting back their money from the company.
“We had voted the government to power to give us social and economic security. The company has obtained license from the government to accept deposits from people. It’s the responsibility of the government to help people get their money back,” said Bijay Kumar Padhy, President of Sahara Depositors’ Forum.
“As the company has duped the depositors, the government should ban the company and seize its property to repay the deposits of people,” said Padhy.
Meanwhile, Sahara India responded over the development through an official letter saying, "It is to update you that we are paying extra interest on delayed repayment, even for a single day delay. But few of our workers who have left the organization are misguiding our esteemed investors and provoking them for complaints"
"We do understand that esteemed investors are facing problems and we have always tried to communicate with our esteemed investors about causes of delay of repayment through Newspapers. Recently ‘Saharasri’ Subrata Roy Sahara, Chairman, Sahara India Pariwar has also communicated through a National Channel and informed about the delay caused in regularization of repayment due to Corona Pandemic, the company said in its statement.
Sahara India further added that it expects and is fully hopeful that in next 4-5 months situation will change in their favour and they can regularize the payment schedule.
(Edited by Pradeep Singh)