Three reports on studies commissioned by the UPA have been lying with the Modi government since 2014.
New Delhi: Members of Parliament (MPs) chose to look the other way when they got an opportunity to bring into the public domain the information on black money in India and abroad, ThePrint has learnt. This information — in the form of three reports commissioned by the UPA — has been kept under wraps by the NDA government for nearly four years.
In September last year, the finance ministry shared the confidential reports with a parliamentary panel, but the latter chose to return them to the government recently.
ThePrint spoke to chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on finance Veerappa Moily, also a senior Congress leader, who confirmed the matter.
“We can ask for these reports again if and when we take up the black money issue. Right now, we are focusing on banking issues,” Moily said.
A member of the committee said that he, as well as other members — MPs drawn from different parties — had the option of looking at the contents of these reports in the chairman’s chamber.
“As far as I know, none of us approached him (Moily) for this. Kaun iss black money ke vivaad min pade (who will get into the black money controversy)?” said the MP.
Parliamentary panel reports come into the public domain only once they have been tabled in the House. If the committee on finance had taken up they reports on black money for discussion, their contents would have become public in the panel’s report.
The studies on black money were conducted by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), New Delhi, National Institute of Financial Management, Faridabad, and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi. Two of these three reports were submitted after the NDA government came to power in May 2014.
Moily refused to divulge the findings of these reports on the quantum of black money, saying they were “very divergent”.
“They are all estimates, not the exact amount. You can’t calculate the exact amount. But the findings of even the estimated amounts varied hugely,” said Moily.
The issue of black money was one of the central planks of the BJP in 2014, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi promising at election rallies that people would get Rs 15-20 lakh each in their bank accounts once the black money stashed abroad was brought back.
As the opposition parties started questioning Modi about this poll promise, BJP president Amit Shah clarified that it was merely a “jumla” (idiom) and even people knew that Rs 15 lakh was not going to be deposited in their accounts. The black money would be brought back and used for public welfare schemes, said the ruling party president.
In its fourth anniversary media advertisements Saturday, the government enumerated the number of steps it has taken to unearth black money, including demonetisation of high-value notes, treaties with other countries to share information, and enactment of laws. There was no mention of the amount of black money unearthed so far.