Atrociously high interest rate : Get rich quick mentality
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 03, 2023 -

Lure of easy money, refusal to learn from the past, a gullible people whose sense of reasoning and caution can be blinded by the colour of money and here is a perfect recipe for conman or conmen to come in different shapes and sizes and walk away with the hard earned money of the people.

Manipur has already heard of the infamous Salai Holdings Private Limited and Lamjingba Finance which have reportedly walked away with crores of rupees deposited by the gullible investors, all attracted by the outrageously high interest rate-a rate that does not conform with the interest rates offered by the Nationalised banks under approval from the Reserve Bank of India.

No doubt the law enforcing agencies have already taken up the cases pertaining to Salai Holdings and Lamjingba Finance, with the head of the two companies cooling their heels under custody, as of now, but this does not seem to have taught the people any lesson.

A case of the pull of easy money being too strong, one may say, and herein lies exposed the mentality of the people, a people who want to get rich quick just by sitting at home.

With their local background, it must have been rather easy for Salai Holdings and Lamjingba Finance to more easily understand and manipulate the psyche of the people and obviously promises of high returns was an easy option.

The modus operandi is simple and similar.

Pay the outrageously high interest rate unfailingly for the first couple of months and then slowly and gradually taper off the payment, leaving the investors high and dry.

It is not without reason why some conscientious individuals with some knowledge of invest- ments and how interests are paid to the investors spoke out so much against the ‘outrageously high interest rate’ put on offer by some of the dubious financial institutions in their social media posts, but more than clear that a large number of people are simply not ready to listen to reasoning.

The story now shifts to Ukhrul where a large number of investors stormed another private financial company, Pandam Nidhi Limited on the ground that the said company has not paid their interest since January this year.

A similar story runs through here too.

Investors were lured with the promise of 8-10 percent monthly interest and not surprisingly a large number of people did deposit their hard earned cash with the said company.

How things will unfold in the coming days is anyone’s guess, but Manipur represents a classic case of a State where people want to get rich without having to work for it.

The average annual per capita income of Manipur has been roughly worked out at Rs 87 thousand putting the monthly income a little over Rs 7 thousand.

View this against the individual who had invested Rs 27.5 lakh at Pandam office and this would mean an income of over 30 years !!

No one is questioning from where such a huge amount of money came, but to think that this is the amount invested with Pandam Nidhi Limited on the assurance that the said gentleman will receive an interest of 8-10 percent per month and herein lies the gullibility of the people clouded by the promise of exceedingly high interest rate.

The promise of the obnoxiously high interest rate should have been the red flag, but here is a case of a people refusing to learn from cases which have been reported far and wide.

Not yet clear on the total amount of money collected from the gullible people of Ukhrul, but the story will not end here and one can expect more in the coming days.

It is also not yet clear who floated the financial institution but this is besides the point. It should be more than clear from the cases cited here that the mindset of the people should change.

There is no short cut to wealth or money, unless one strikes it rich in a mega lottery, and outrageous interest rate should not cloud the reasoning faculty of the people.

How things develop in the coming days will surely be interesting and most likely it is the investors who stand to lose.