Sahara investors protest against government failure to refund deposits 

Hundreds of Sahara group investors protest in Delhi against government's failure to refund deposits, claiming portal is a non-starter.

Hundreds of people who invested in four cooperatives run by the Sahara group protested in Delhi on February 1 against the government’s failure to refund the deposits.

The small time depositors had come from several parts of the country to protest at Jantar Mantar.

The protesters said the portal launched by Union Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah in July 2023 to refund the money of investors, majority of them from rural and semi-urban areas across 26 States, had been a non-starter. Most claims are rejected on the grounds of “deficiency,” the investors said.

The deficiency is primarily on account of mismatch between the claims and the data of Sahara investors available on the Ministry’s portal. The maximum refund that can be claimed has been capped at ₹10,000, irrespective of the total amount invested.

Kuldeep Jain, a small-time businessman from Nowgong, Madhya Pradesh, said that despite uploading all the documents on the portal his claim was rejected.

“My daughter-in-law is fighting cancer. I need the refund. We had to even pay bribe to people at the Common Services Centre [CSC] to upload the documents. I had invested ₹10 lakh in Sahara, have not received even a penny,” Mr. Jain said.