Families run from pillar to post to retrieve funds from small financiers

A series of cases with money apparently having mysteriously vanished has wrecked the finances of hundreds of families in Kerala, while simultaneously sending shock waves among philanthropists who have donated to relief funds.

While clients of two chit fund companies, Himalaya and Everest, have been trying to retrieve the money they have deposited with them, fixed depositors of another company, Integrated Finance, are also shellshocked about the future of their deposits with the company proposing to restructure its business in order to survive.

Meanwhile, in political circles questions continue to be asked about the money donated to tsunami relief funds, including those given to the state government as well as to the Indian Union Muslim League.

Over the past few weeks, people in the state who have put their money in instruments as diverse as chit funds to fixed deposits in non-banking financial companies are running from pillar to post, trying their best to retrieve at least part of their hard-earned money which they thought they had invested wisely.

Hundreds of clients of the Himalaya Chit Fund, which has been in the news in recent days for the alleged murder of T.G. Ramesh, owner of their business rival Everest Chit Fund, are now hoping against hope that they will get their money back even as police are hot on the heels of the proprietors of Himalaya Chit Fund, Sajith and Binish.

Ransacked

Some of Himalaya's clients had a few days ago ransacked the company's offices and business units in the state, including a textile shop, trying to retrieve whatever they could to make up for the money they have invested in the company.

The clients of Everest are considered to be hardly better off, considering that there has been a vacuum at the top, with the death of the company's proprietor Ramesh. He was killed along with his sister and car driver when a lorry allegedly rammed into his car at Kanichukulangara in Alappuzha district.

In the case of Integrated Finance, several depositors in central Kerala, including pockets like Tiruvalla, Kozhencherry and Kanjirapally, fear that they may have lost all their savings which they had deposited in the company which promised them high interest rates.

The money had been deposited years ago at the high interest rates that prevailed in those days, but the company found the going tough in the wake of a sharp drop in interest rates.

While it had to continue paying high interest rate to depositors, it could only lend at much lower rates to borrowers with the interest rates steadily dropping in the financial markets.

The other organisation facing criticism over funds is the Indian Union Muslim League, with its former Youth League leader K.T. Jaleel alleging that funds collected for relief of tsunami victims by the IUML had not been accounted for.

Jaleel said funds collected by the IUML from organisations like the Gulf-based Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre were not accounted for by the party.