KATHMANDU, AUGUST 12

Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand has formed a five-member task force under Joint Secretary Bhisma Bhusal to study problems facing loan shark victims across the country and file a report.

The government's move comes in the backdrop of loan protests by usury victims in Kathmandu. Task force members include Under Secretary of Home Ministry Shree Krishna Poudel, Deputy Investigation Director of National Investigation Department Mukunda Marahattha, Senior Superintendent of Police Dinesh Acharya, who is with the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police, and Superintendent of Police Krishna Prasad Koirala from the Crime Investigation Section of Nepal Police.

Spokesperson for the Ministry of Home Affairs Phanindra Mani Pokharel said task force members would visit some districts and interact with loan shark victims before preparing a report. The task force has one month to prepare its report.

People from several districts have arrived in Kathmandu to protest outrageous interest rates on loan imposed by loan sharks. In recent years, many usury victims have intensified their fight against loan sharks saying they have to sell their land and houses to repay small amount of loan they had taken from their village usurers.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Roshan Khadka, who is with the Central Investigation Bureau, has been nominated as member secretary of the task force.

Home Ministry Spokesperson said the task force would first need to find out the gravity and nature of the problems before recommending remedies and actions against culprits. 'The nature of problems facing loan shark victims may differ from one district to another. For example, problems faced by a loan shark victim in Saptari may not be the same as faced by those in Sarlahi,' Pokharel added.

Associate professor of law Balram Raut said usurers in village areas exploit poor people mainly because the government and banking institutions were not helping the poor in times of need. 'Poor people often take loan to marry off daughters or to deal with drought and other natural disasters. These people do not get loan from the government's farmer loan scheme or banking institutions. They have to go to local lenders who charge them exorbitantly high interest rates,' Raut said.

He said prevailing laws did not allow lenders to charge more than 10 per cent interest rate, but local lenders were charging at much higher rates. 'Poor people do not complain against loan sharks because they fear that if they did that, they might not get loan from local lenders in the future,' Raut said.

He added that the government needed to ensure that poor people could get loan from formal channels in a hassle-free manner. 'Only rich people get loans from banks. Banking process is so cumbersome that people do not tend to go to banks for loan,' Raut said. He added that banks sought mortgage and heaps of documents which common and poor people consider cumbersome.

Stating that vibrant media had helped lessen sufferings of usury victims, Raut said usury existed in the past as well, but media outlets would not report those incidents.

A version of this article appears in the print on August 13, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.