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Exposing get rich quick schemes
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IANS | 02 Sep, 2019
Get rich schemes - call them what you may - have siphoned off some Rs 7
lakh crore but no one seems to bat an eyelid, laments Aruna Ravikumar, a
three-decade veteran of the print and electronic media, in her new
book, tracing their origins to the liberalisation of the economy in
1991.
"The losses in Ponzi and pyramid (Multi-Level
Marketing-MLM) in the country are being pegged at INR 7 lakh crore and
no one's batting an eyelid. These figures don't seem to matter anymore
in a country that has gotten used to scams involving huge amounts of
money in the banking system," Hyderabad-based Ravikumar writes in
"Marauders of Hope" (The Write Place/Crossword/pp 166/Rs 299).
"So
sick and tired have citizens become of these mind numbing figures that
the shock element is long gone. We have even started comparing scam
figures finding one less dangerous than the other in the manner of
comparing school grades."
Just how true this is can be gauged
from three high-profile cases currently in the public eye - Saradha (Rs
1,200-Rs 4,000 crore), Rose Valley (Rs 17,000 crore) and IMA (Rs 2,500
crore) - none of which are anywhere near closure. In the case of the
first, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee went to the extent of
staging a sit-in protest against the questioning of former Kolkata
Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar for his alleged involvement in the
goings-on.
Autonomous regulatory institutions "have to exercise
their authority without fear to serve the purpose for which they were
established. We have examples of officers following the rule book and
remaining true to their conscience, despite may pressures. They ought to
be role models for those in various positions of authority if the
system providing a shield to the corrupt has to be cleansed," Ravikumar
maintains.
How did the book come about?
"As a journalist
with the print and electronic media for almost three decades, I have
covered several political and social issues. One of the topics in a
television debate programme that I anchored for a regional television
channel was on fraudulent multilevel marketing firms since many firms
came under the scanner of the police at that point of time," Ravikumar
told IANS.
"Shocking details about the modus operandi, the huge
amount of money being made by people outside the country, evasion of
taxes, money laundering, the web of deception and trail of broken
relationships in a marketing model that encourages tapping social
contacts for recruitment led me to study the subject in depth. I also
realised that people were talking about bank frauds and other financial
institutions but there was no conversation around fraud that impacts
everyone in society and is more than Rs 7 lakh crore in the two decades
since these companies entered India post liberalisation. There was a
story here that had to be told and I told it," she added.
Speaking
about her research for the book, the author said this proved to an
eye-opener and made her acutely aware of the survival instincts of the
"Marauders of Hope".
"I spoke to victims, company
representatives, whistle-blowers, the judiciary and police officers who
acted without fear or favour in the best interests of the people. I went
through court judgements, newspaper articles, video clippings and all
available material on fraudulent financial schemes in the
one-and-a-half-years that led to the book," Ravikumar added.
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