The Government of India has launched the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies (CRCS)-Sahara Refund Portal to refund the hard-earned money of crores of depositors in four cooperative societies of Sahara Group in about 45 days.
Calling the portal a historic moment, Cooperation Minister of India Amit Shah on July 18 said that this is the first time when depositors are getting refunds in a case where multiple government agencies are involved and each one has done a seizure.
On March 29, the Government of India had said that money will be returned to 10 crore investors of the four cooperative societies within nine months. The announcement followed a Supreme Court order directing transfer of Rs 5,000 crore from Sahara-Sebi refund account to the CRCS.
To begin with, the depositors would get up to Rs 10,000 refund. Subsequently, the amount would be enhanced for those who have invested higher amounts. The corpus of Rs 5,000 crore would be able to take care of the needs of 1.7 crore depositors in the first phase.
About 2.5 crore people have deposits of up to Rs 30,000 in the four cooperative societies, namely Sahara Credit Cooperative Society Ltd, Saharayn Universal Multipurpose Society Ltd, Humara India Credit Cooperative Society Ltd, and Stars Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd.
The portal is developed by a subsidiary of IFCI and requires the depositor’s Aadhaar registration with mobile and Aadhaar-linking with the bank account where refund is to be deposited.
