Don’t harass loan defaulters, Satish Jarkiholi tells micro-financiers

Public Works Minister Satish Jarkiholi on Friday asked micro-financing institutions in Belagavi not to harass debtors who had taken loans from them. He warned of initiating legal action in case they resort to illegal means to recover the money.

Satish pointed out that most of these loans had been taken by gullible people, mostly women, who had fallen prey to unscrupulous individuals promising enormous returns on their investment.

‘Duped’

These people had turned to micro-financiers for the money, and had subsequently been duped by the fraudsters, said Satish.

The minister, who presided over the Karnataka Development Programme review meeting at the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha, asked the micro-financiers not to harass defaulters till the police complete their probe into the cheating cases.

The minister also exhorted people against being lured into investing in such schemes on the promise of disproportionate returns.

The troubles of the debtors came to the fore after a woman, and her infant, were forced to spend a night in the shed as a moneylender sealed the house they were living in, on Thursday. However, following the intervention of Women and Child Welfare Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar, the seal was removed on Friday.