The Hindu : Kerala News : Akshaya a failure: entrepreneurs

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Wednesday, Jul 23, 2008
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Kerala

Akshaya a failure: entrepreneurs

Staff Reporter

They narrate their bundle of woes before Chief Minister

MALAPPURAM: A group of Akshaya entrepreneurs from Malappuram district has approached Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan seeking his intervention to get waived the debts they incurred for launching Akshaya centres a few years ago.

A memorandum submitted to the Chief Minister under the banner of the Akshaya Entrepreneurs Association pointed out that many of the entrepreneurs were facing confiscation of their properties as they had ‘mortgaged their livelihood for a living offered by the government.’

The memorandum, signed by association’s chairman K.P. Abdurahman, said that the State IT Mission, which implemented the Akshaya e-literacy project on a pilot basis in Malappuram, had not come for the rescue of the entrepreneurs when they needed help. Instead, the memorandum said, the IT Mission shirked the financial commitment it made when the project was launched in 2003.

According to the association, although every entrepreneur was assured an initial return of Rs.1,20,000 by creating awareness among 1,000 families, nearly half of that amount could be recovered from the business. “That too several years later after everyone of us investing Rs.2 lakh,” said Mr. Abdurahman. Most entrepreneurs had begun their centres by availing themselves of loans from banks such as South Malabar Gramin Bank, Canara Bank, Malappuram District Cooperative Bank, and State Bank of Travancore. The debts the entrepreneurs incurred in the first phase of the project increased over the years. Now many of them face the threat of attachment of properties by the bank.

The entrepreneurs said the IT Mission had never bothered to listen to their financial woes. They said their project failed, incurring heavy loss and debts, owing to faulty implementation of a project that even developed nations watched with curiosity.

They said IT Mission and Akshaya project officials had tried to harass the weak ones among them by sending false reports to the government. The entrepreneurs claimed that the project as a service to the people was a failure in Malappuram district. They challenged the claims that more than 300 Akshaya centres were actively functioning in the district.

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