Cuttack, May 11: More than a year after the state government planned to auction the attached properties of various unauthorised deposit collection companies to quickly repay the duped investors, there has hardly been any progress in the matter.

Identifying genuine investors has been another major problem in the deposit collection scam probe.

As of now, the government has been able to do little to kindle hope among the cheated investors of getting back their money, especially in the light of its avowed objective to give priority to small investors (those who had invested Rs 10,000 or less) and repay them.

Since the government announced its plans to e-auction attached properties, the designated special court in Cuttack had passed orders under the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (In Financial Establishments) Act, 2011, for public auction of properties of four sham deposit collection companies which had been attached in the state.

The additional district magistrate (ADM), Cuttack, who is the competent authority chosen under the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (In Financial Establishments) Act, 2011, had been directed to release the sale proceeds of public auction of the attached properties of Rose Valley Group of Companies, Safex Infra India Limited, Astha Group of Companies and Golden Land Developers Group of Companies for distribution among the respective depositors.

The government had planned e-auction of the attached properties through web portal of central government's Metals and Scrap Trading Corporation.

The immovable attached properties of Rose Valley Group were first put up for online auction at a base price of Rs 3.86 crore on May 4. But not a single bidder turned up on that day. "We will conduct e-auction of the properties once again on May 31," said ADM-Cuttack, Bibhuti Bhusan Das.

Around Rs 48 crores had been recovered from various bank accounts of Rose Valley Group and transferred to the government's account.

But refunding the investors has not been possible as genuine investors are yet to be identified.

"Distribution of the sale proceeds and other money will be made after the list of genuine investors is available," Das said. "The government plans to receive applications from investors for refund. Odisha Computer Application Centre will shortly come up with a software to receive the online applications at Jan Suvidha Kendras across the state," Das said.