Money-lenders make hay while salaried class suffers
Source: Hueiyen News Service / Dr Kongbrailatpam Ratnabali

New Delhi, October 03 2015 : Salary, or for that matter any remuneration irrespective of its nomenclature, payable to an employee at the end of the month or any regular period, by the government, forms the vital means of economic survival of many 'single-earning member' families belonging to low income group.

For such families which have no other viable source of income or accumulated wealth/savings on which they can bank upon when occasion of delayed payment of salary by the government arise, it puts such families in considerable hardship.

Many of such families are unable to shell out money right away from their pocket to buy their daily needs and depend upon the non-formal credit system available in the grocery shops and vegetable sellers that operate on a small scale and exclusively cater to the need of people in the neighbourhood.

In this economic microcosm that is prevalent in most part of Imphal, buying and selling daily needs on credit goes on and on and part or whole payment in satisfaction of the debt is made as and when salary is received.

When majority of the vendees that a vendor caters to fall under the category of buyer-on-credit, it becomes a difficulty to run the business at the end of such self-financed small shops/stalls.

The non-translation of sold goods to money, which is essential to fuel the continuity of such small enterprise creates problem for the vendor-creditor who may also depend on credit system to buy supplies from the whole-seller.

Both the debtor and creditor depend on the disbursement of salary by the Government in order to discharge their own obligations.

In this economic microcosm, there is one small, but growing, section of the population, which takes the benefit of such a situation.

Those are the people who are economically better placed and have additional money to spare at their disposal to fund the need of vendor-creditor and vendee-debtor at a high rate of interest, which they collect on a daily or weekly basis.

This lead to high indebtedness to such private moneylenders and their woes and burden of debt increases with every delay at employers end, in paying the salary due to such affected employees.

These private moneylenders' business remains unchecked and distant from the realm of legal control of such business.

It is pertinent to mention in this regard that 'money-lending and money-lenders' is a subject matter of the States as per List –II in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India.

Manipur legislature did not enact a separate legislation as such but the Bombay Moneylenders Act, 1946 was extended to Manipur when it was a Union Territory by notification dated 4-8-61.Section 5 of the said 1946 Act clearly states that a moneylender can do the business of money lending only in the licensed area and in accordance with the terms and conditions of the license granted to him/her as per the Act.

It is anybody's guess how many moneylenders are operating in Manipur without the required license as per law.

But this class of people are flourishing in the current environ where pays are delayed and living is made extremely costly due to unprecedented rise in price due to very frequent economic blockades and bandhs, called for one reason or the other in this State.

The economic growth of such money-lending class is based on self-production of wealth by wealth, where there is little or no labour invested in the whole process.

This may lead to an anomaly in the economic growth due to disproportionate input and output ratio.

This creates a fertile ground for discontent in the society and sows the seeds for class conflict.

In such a conflict environ, there shall emerge many more who shall try to cash on such chaos.

State must conduct a stocktaking exercise to apprise itself of the prevailing socio-economic conditions of the people.

It should review the existing law and come up with the required amendment or with a new state legislation on the subject of money-lending.

Further, the State should also look into ways and means of minimizing the economic hardships faced by common people in Manipur and take reasonable steps to achieve equitable growth and distribution of wealth as part of its duty under the Directive Principles of State Policy.

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