June 2 was earlier decided as launch date
KOCHI: The KSFE NRI online chiti or the Pravasi Chiti (Kuri) that was planned to be launched on June 2nd has been postponed for a couple of weeks – and most likely to be launched in July.
Though the earlier decision was to launch the much trumpeted NRI Chiti or Pravasi Chiti on June 2 in Trivandrum, there are unconfirmed reports that the Election Commission held back the approval ostensibly due to the Chengannoor polls to be held in the last week of May.
“It’s true that the elections get over on May 28, but we need to do the marketing exercises at least for two to three weeks in the run up to the launch. We hope the launch will take place any time in July,” said one in the know of the developments.
The Finance Minister Dr Thomas Isaac had earlier made it clear that though the chiti would be run by Kerala State Financial Enterprises (KSFE), the Government owned MNBFC (miscellaneous) NBFC that controls 70 per cent of the chiti market in the state, the funds thus raised would be invested in KIIFB bonds instead of placing it with Treasury.
KIIFB hopes to raise Rs10,000 crore through an array of chitis with different sala (size of chiti), different durations, different instalment size that suit the different economic layers in the Indian Diaspora. However, the outgo per month may be confined to the band of Rs3000 to Rs10000, according to sources.
The Pravasi Chitis are unique by the feature that these chitis are incorporated with the added features such as Insurance and Pension schemes, whereas the latter will be done by Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India, Moreover, the Pravasi Chitis will be offered through advanced online platform and as such the NRIs can subscribe and monitor their Chit transactions from any part of the world.
The salient feature of the Insurance Scheme in the Pravasi Chiti is that in the event of death or permanent disability of the subscriber, all the remaining monthly subscriptions will be completely covered by the insurance.
