In the name of Modi's Digital India a company loots Silchar businessman of 8 lakh, 3 crore from Northeast

Post demonetisation the government of India has been promoting cashless transactions to reduce heavy dependence on hard cash. The economic condition of the country and low cash flow forced fair price shop owners, small and medium enterprises to install point of sale (POS) machines to enable card transactions. 

This resulted in a sudden demand of POS machines across the country including Silchar. Living up to the opportunity an organisation operating from Bora Service, 3rd floor Bramhaputra College, Guwahati marketed a product called Mini Atm. The product was promoted as a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream initiative Digital India.

In 2017 a Silchar based agent of the company, Swapan Kar reached out to Dipankar Roy, proprietor of Debanjali Trading and explained about the business, “Kar told me this is a Narendra Modi initiative which follows the guidelines of Reserve Bank Of India. The business model was, I need to take a franchisee and supply swiping machines to fair price shops and mid size enterprises. As a benefit I would receive 25 paise each time a customer swipes through those machines,” informs Dipankar Roy.

Roy got convinced by the business model and decided to take the cluster franchisee, as a part of it bought 100 numbers of such swiping machines. He then used his personal resources and sold 6 – 7 such swiping machines to fair price shops. When he checked the details of the transactions he found out that the business model was flouting RBI guidelines and in fact there was no banking institutions involved in the entire process.

“Realising this I immediately decided to exit this business and returned 66 swiping machines back to them. An executive in Guwahati received those machines and gave me a cheque worth Rs 8 lakh. This happened in 2017 itself,” informs Dipankar Roy.

The cheque bounced and then they gave another cheque of same amount which bounced too. After the third one got dishonoured by the bank, Roy filled a case aganist the issuer. The legal noticed returned time and again as the proprietors had shuttered down and fled.

Yesterday, Roy filled an FIR at Silchar Sadar against MD of the organisation Sujon Sarkar his wife and joint director, Sutapa Roy Sarkar, Anjan Chanda, zonal manager of the Indian transit service and Swapan Kumar Kar, the agent who convinced Roy to be a franchisee owner. Roy accused all of the above mentioned of forgery and filed a criminal suit against them.

As per Roy’s allegations, the organisation cheated around 40 such businessmen from Northeast, and fled with close to Rs 3 crore.