HT Correspondent
DIBRUGARH, Oct 16: Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma distributed no dues certificate under Assam Micro Finance Incentive and Relief Scheme (AMFIRS) 2021 Category-III to 22,172 borrowers at a programme in Dibrugarh on Monday.
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While addressing the public at Mancotta filed in Dibrugarh, the chief minister said, “Several women has request me to take necessary steps to get rid of the microfinance loans as they were facing a lot of problems because the microfinance companies are taking 24 % interest which is impossible for a poor women to return the loan. So, we have decided to pay the loan amount. We have already paid the loan amount to the banks and today we have handed over the no dues certificate to the women.”
He advised all women not to take such high interest loans in the near future from the microfinance companies.
“It came to our knowledge that about 24 lakh women took the benefit of microfinance loans. As many as 14 lakh women were unable to return the loans and some women were not returning for 3 months and some were completely unable to return for which they were blacklisted and in future they cannot take any loans. To overcome this problem the Assam government took the decision to grant no dues certificate to microfinance borrowers,” Sarma stated.
He said that Rs 10,000 would be offered to those women of General Caste who have maximum of 3 children and to SC/ST women who have maximum of 4 children and in future about Rs 15,000 will also be given to all the women who have taken loans.
Sarma said that Dibrugarh has the highest loan borrowers, Sivsagar second highest.
“Assam covers about 50% Microfinance borrowers and they will be relieved from loans with the help of this scheme,” he stated.
He said, “We will organise sports and cultural events in Assam which will be known as Khel Maharan and Sanskriti Mahasangram. We urged the parents to motivate their children to take part in Khel Maharan and Sanskriti Mahasangram.”
Sarma, during the campaigning in the run-up to the 2021 Assam Assembly elections, said that many women came up to him complaining about harassment by the lenders owing to their inability to repay the loan they had availed. During the election campaigns, he promised to look into the grievances of the female borrowers of loans from microfinance institutions, CM Sarma said, adding that after becoming the chief minister of Assam, he decided to formulate a work-able solution to the issue. Through the categorisation formula, till now a total of more than 20 lakh borrowers of loans from microfinance institutions have benefited from AMFIRS 2021, he added.
Union minister of state for petroleum, natural gas, labour Rameswar Teli, industries, commerce and cultural affairs minister Bimal Bora, Dibrugarh MLA Prasanta Phukan among others were present at the programme.
