Balangir: Hundreds of agents working for various Ponzi companies here and in Kalahandi districts that duped the money of depositors assembled here on Tuesday and sought protection from the district administration.

The agents, led by Feroz Sahu, took out a rally and handed over memorandum to the Balangir district collector and the SP appealing for protection. They also asked the state government through the memorandum to do the needful to compensate the investors at the earliest. The agents said they would resort to agitation and sit on dharna in front of the district collectorate with their family members if the government did not take steps to address their issue before the general elections in 2019.

Sources said thousands of people of Balangir and Kalahandi districts were lured with rich dividends from the sham deposit collection companies such as Sea Shore, Rose Valley, Sai Prakash, Sai Prasad, GN Gold, AM finance and many others. The proprietors and owners of the companies were arrested and many of them are still languishing in jails.

Sahu further said that in November, the government had said it would compensate the small investors of two companies namely Sea Shore and Rose valley by January 2018.

"But, nothing is done yet. The government had also decided to float a corpus fund of Rs 300 crore to compensate the small investors. Even that didn't materialise. Now, there is threat on our lives," Sahu said.

Debasish Bohidar, an investor with AM Finance, said he invested Rs 2 lakh as the firm had promised that it would be double in four years. "They also issued me a post-dated cheque. I also motivated some of my relatives to invest in the same plan. All our money is gone," he said.