By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, May 2, 2018: There is finally some hope for small depositors in chit funds in Odisha, who have been duped like never before. Various chit fund firms have duped their depositors in the state to the tune of around Rs 4,600 crore.

The Odisha government has at last taken steps to ensure refunding of the deposited money in these erring chit funds to about 90,000 small depositors, official sources said adding that the tehsildars have already started verification process of the small depositors.

The finance department has directed the officials for error free verification to identify the chit fund victims. As per the directive, the small depositors identified by the chit fund Commission will have to deposit bond and furnish the first page of their bank passbook at Tehsils of respective districts.

Depositors who had invested upto Rs 10,000 in various chit fund firms in Odisha are identified as small depositors. The depositors will get back their money after verification, officials said. The remaining depositors will get back their money subsequently.

Earlier Justice MM Das Commission that probed into the chit fund scam in Odisha identified around one lakh small depositors.

After receiving the bond and documents from the depositors, the tehsildars will forward the documents to the district collectors, who will make process for depositing money at bank accounts of the chit fund depositors by electronic transfer.

Earlier, the state government had set up a Rs 300 crore corpus fund in 2013 to refund small depositors. But identifying the genuine depositors was an uphill task and a lengthy one too.