Dispur to enforce laws to stop harassing borrowers for recovery of debt

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Assam Government will enforce legislation to restrain the financial institutions to send their agents to the home of micro borrowers for recovery of debt.

The move has come after a delegation of women from a joint liability group recently met Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and narrated how a section of agents were mentally harassing them at their houses for recovery of loans. Sarma assured the women group to take remedial measures to stop such harassment in future.

Sources said Sarma has already directed the Finance department to consult the issue with legal experts to draft a legislation to restrain the financial institutions to send their agents to the home of borrowers in case the latter fail to clear their debts in time. The proposed legislation will particularly prevent the rural borrowers from facing unnecessary harassment from the lenders.

Leader of the Opposition DebabrataSaikia recently wrote a letter to the Assam Governor Professor JagadishMukhi and urged the government to do away with the weekly or fortnightly system of loan repayment. He said many of the borrowers have been forced to resort to distress-sale of livestock, power tillers, two-wheelers and even land to make weekly or fortnightly repayment.

Saikia wrote that a few persons have even committed suicide after falling into the debt trap.

An internal study conducted by the Microfinance Institutions Network in 2019 revealed that indebtedness of micro borrowers in Assam is more than double the national average.

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