Benumaya Suffers as Savings Disappear from Cooperative’s Recharge Card Sales, Lacking Funds for Medical Treatment
2 Ashar, Kathmandu – Physically disabled Benumaya Kutuwal is currently struggling to recover her trapped savings from a cooperative. Finding it difficult even to gather daily expenses, Kutuwal has approached various government bodies multiple times demanding the return of her money. While selling recharge cards on the street, employees of Shivshikhar Multipurpose Cooperative enticed her with promises of high interest rates and discounts on groceries, which prompted her to start saving with them. The cooperative’s presence along her daily sales route motivated her to save regularly. Even before she began saving, the staff’s various inducements gained her trust, leading her to deposit her hard-earned income. “Being a helpless disabled person, it wasn’t the employees’ ill intent; I trusted their reassuring promises to keep my money,” she said. “Now I regret it; the money I saved and never touched has been taken by others. I can neither work nor recover my savings.”
Her savings amounted to approximately NPR 100,000, and she also set aside NPR 500 earned from selling recharge cards for the future. “Keeping money in the cooperative didn’t fill my stomach yesterday or today,” she lamented. Kutuwal had fixed deposits of NPR 400,000 at Shivshikhar and NPR 500,000 at Gautamshree Cooperative. Now, due to her disability, her mobility is limited, she lacks funds for treatment, and is unable to work. Unable to speak properly, she reported that without medicine she is unable to move, has difficulty swallowing water, and even breathing is a challenge. “I have been suffering from this condition for about 10 years,” she stated.
An unmarried, single woman, Kutuwal currently has neither money nor anyone to support her. Having become bedridden, she had previously earned money by selling recharge cards daily on Kathmandu’s streets and deposited her earnings in the cooperative. “Saving money in the cooperative only added to my troubles,” she complained. “Because I am ill and weak, the situation became even more complicated after my money was stuck. Even my will to live has diminished.”
What was the issue with Shivshikhar Cooperative? As employees collected savings and invested in various companies, the leadership style of the then-chairperson, Kedar Sharma, and his team plunged the institution into crisis. When savers requested their money back, it was not returned. Subsequently, on 25 Bhadra 2080 BS, the cooperative was declared insolvent at the initiative of depositors. On 18 Jestha 2080 BS, the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police filed a case against Sharma and other directors and employees for “cooperative fraud and organized crime.” Similar fraud cases involving cooperatives have been registered across 37 districts, including Bhaktapur.
