Tripura LF withdraws chit fund amendment bill

From A Correspondent

Agartala, Dec 20 : Tripura government was forced to withdraw a bill seeking amendment in the act for regulating business of the non-banking fincial companies popularly known as Chit Funds following severe criticism from opposition members. The fince minister Bhanu Lal Saha who earlier presented the bill before the house withdrew it after the Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said there are scope for further consideration to the questions raised by the opposition members. He also said that the bill may be reintroduced in the house with necessary amendments. The controversial amendments proposed in the bill sought to introduce stringent conditions for granting trade licence to the NBFC’s from the city corporations or gar panchayats. The bill sought to make verification by the district magistrate compulsory before granting trade licence to NBFC’s which was earlier sole authority of the elected bodies. The bill also sought to enhance the amount of fine for failure of the NBFC’s to submit necessary documents from Rs 500 to Rs 5 lakhs. Participating in the discussion Ratan Lal lath of the Congress and Sudip Roy Barman of the Trimool Congress expressed grave doubt over the intention of the amendment and said the Left Front is trying to pave way for chit funds to start business with a new incartion.

Mr Roy Barman said when the chit funds fled away from the state after looting hundreds of crores of rupees from the depositors the Left Front government remained silent spectator. He said the bill is part of fresh conspiracy to loot people’s money. Both Roy Barman and th expressed doubt over the state government’s intention and said if the state government was really serious they would have seized all the bank accounts of the chit funds, their properties and documents. They also demanded a CBI enquiry over the chit fund scandal in Tripura.