Punish Loan Sharks

Following over weeklong protests in Kathmandu, the government formed a probe panel to investigate into the ill practice of moneylenders, who charge exorbitant interests in loans they provided to their victims, the village poor and peasants. After weighing the seriousness of the matter and the victims' repeated appeal to the government authorities to resolve their problems, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba instructed the Home Minister, the Inspector General of Police and other high-level government officials to look into the matter and identify the measures to resolve the problems faced by the victims of loan sharks. He also asked the authorities to bring the culprits to justice and chart out a plan to prevent such crimes in the future.

As per the PM's instruction, the Home Ministry, the other day, constituted a six-member taskforce led by the joint secretary at Home Ministry, Bhisma Bhusal, to control the crime related to loan sharks across the country. The taskforce will submit its reports after collecting incident reports from various districts where loan sharks are in operation. Before this, the body has been asked to identify victims' problems and their solutions, besides coordinating and cooperating with inter-agency to bring loan sharks to book, and providing recommendations to reduce or prevent such crimes from taking place in the future. The plight of victims tells us that loan sharks are active across the nation, but are particularly prevalent in the Terai districts where they regularly make the poor and ignorant their victims. Poor villagers who require money but are ignorant of how interest is calculated frequently fall victim to unscrupulous lenders. 

A loan shark is a person or group that lends money at astronomical interest rates. These moneylenders usually use threats and force to collect debts from the unsuspecting debtors, who often lose their houses and properties after being unable to pay exorbitant interests to a minuscule capital sum. Surprisingly, these loan sharks, most of who know the loopholes in laws and have connections to the powerful, frequently make it difficult for law enforcement to take action against them. Most of them operate secretly and illegally, making it difficult for authorities to take action in time. Borrowers are often hesitant to report cases of fraud due to the likelihood that loan sharks may be connected to organised crime groups.  

Sadly, the difficulties of loan victims do not end here. There are prevalent situations in the nation that compel many unsuspecting village poor and peasants to go to loan sharks to get needful cash. Since obtaining finance is full of bureaucratic hassles, small ignorant borrowers find it hard to get loans through cooperatives and banks, which are often concentrated in urban areas. It makes victims' plight worse. Due to their lack of access to conventional financial channels and acute need for cash, the majority of the villages' poor peasant residents turn to loan sharks for loans. As victims' situation gets worse every passing day, which forced them to stage protests in the capital recently, the formation of the government's investigation panel shows the government's commitment to permanently resolving the issue. To achieve that goal, the government must start cracking down on loan sharks and set a ceiling on interest rate in rural areas, which may discourage anyone charging astronomical interests in loans they provide to the poor and unsuspecting villagers and others.