coimbatore it was a golden goose that brought windfall for thousands of people who were looking to reap rich dividends with modest investments but the math simply didnt add up and emu farming stopped giving returns leaving investors in the lurch an emu farmer with just one unit six chicks was promised that he could more than double his investment of rs 15 lakh in two years or get 1306 returns to be precise he could also earn a monthly income of rs 6000 a yearly bonus of rs 20000 and to top it get back his investment in two years now compare this with the other investment options gold gave nearly 28 returns while the best performing equity mutual fund gained 51 during the period a bank fixed deposit fd gave around 9 a year in pretax returns the only investment that could have matched the emu in returns was in real estate in a hot destination even that would not have offered the regular monthly income that the emu farming schemes offered known as naalu vaddi 4 monthly return on investment in local parlance the regular inflows made people flock to firms offering emu farming we need a lot of money to invest in real estate and gold which many are not in a position to do since emu farming schemes offered a regular income people competed with each other to invest says r arumugam of negamam area near pollachi he invested nearly rs 6 lakh in emu farming and has got back only about half of the money its a result of greed he rues we wanted regular income since emu farming offered income on a monthly basis we decided to take it up says p subramani a resident of omalur near salem who invested nearly rs 10 lakh in emu schemes since a few companies who got into emu farming schemes early made payouts on a regular basis for more than five years gullible investors believed that this was a sustainable investment model that many early birds got their entire amount back with hefty returns only added to the lure of the schemes people in rural areas especially senior citizens who had rs 1 lakh to 2 lakh that would have otherwise been invested in bank fds went for emu schemes to get a regular income they dont know much about other investment options all they wanted is a regular monthly income which emu offered says s kumaravel of dharapuram whose relatives have invested in emu schemes real estate and gold wont give us regular income emu schemes created confidence by offering monthly returns over a fairly long period says p jayakanthan of cumbum who has invested rs 6 lakh in two schemes