Madhes lends support to protesting loan shark victims

By Our Correspondent,Dhalkebar, Mar. 30: Madhes province government has expressed its solidarity with the loan shark victims who have been demonstrating in Kathmandu since reaching there on foot from Mahottari. They are demanding justice.

Issuing a statement on Thursday, the Chief Minister Saroj Kumar Yadav expressed his solidarity. 

“Our brothers and sisters who have reached Kathmandu with great pain, we are with you in every step, we are also concerned and responsible for every drop of your tears. We cannot run away from responsibility,” reads the statement. Although the Madhes leads in protests, this problem is widespread across the country. On the one hand, banks do not give loans, creates many obstacles and charges high interest when it gives one. 

On the other, there is a tendency to prey on the desperation of the vulnerable by charging exorbitant interest rates.  So, it is necessary for the centre, the national bank and the provinces to work together against exploitation and predatory practice and to establish a powerful commission with special powers, the government said.

The people are asking for justice, and it must be delivered. 

The bank should open the way. Loans should be easily available at a minimum interest rate to the common people, the statement read. 

“In this context, the province government welcomes the initiative taken by the central government to declare loan shark tendencies a crime and bring them under a legal framework. However, it is necessary to seriously think how far it will go to address the overall problem. 

It is necessary to do a solid homework and formulate a concrete policy to help and cooperate with the citizens to save them from the loan sharks,” the government said in the statement.