The Police Headquarters, in a recent report, disclosed that from 1999-2000 to 2005-06, a six-year period, 571 FIRs relating to swindling, amounting to Rs.1.058 billion, were registered with them. Manpower agencies accounted for the lion’s share of these cases — a whopping 55.65 per cent. But, to make things worse, the involvement of the high and the mighty, institutions and groups plus the political protection reportedly constitute major obstacles to further investigation of some of the significant cases.

The establishment has failed to fulfill its pledge of recovering money from the big defaulters who have borrowed heavily from the Rastriya Banijya Bank and the Nepal Bank Ltd. This cannot help the government’s sliding image. Swindling takes various forms, and individuals and organisations have right and left indulged in this ugly practice to get rich overnight. A number of finance companies and their promoters have decamped with the people’s money. Business firms such as some airlines, too, have fallen victims to the greed of some of their promoters. Rightly so, the government has opted for greater privatisation and economic liberalisation, but the trouble is that there are no clear-cut laws to ensure fair play. Unscrupulous norms have taken deep root in many an area. The question, therefore, is one of thinking big and strong on the need to protect the money of the

innocent, trusting people and taking tough action against those who are having a hell of a good time with the money that’s not their own.