Government Lacks the Will and the Zeal

When the issue of Indian black money stashed in foreign banks got erupted during parliamentary election campaign six months back, it was dismissed as a political and electoral gimmick. It became one of the points of election manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Congress too promised to do everything possible in this direction.

The matter is not that simple and trivial to be pushed under the carpet. It has far reaching consequences and is concerned with the welfare of the people. According to reports by Prof. R. Vaidyanathan, finance professor at IIM Bangalore, though refuted by the Swiss Bank Association, Indian nationals may have upwards of $ one trillion (over Rs. 48 lakh crores) stashed abroad. India leads in this nefarious field leaving countries like Russia, China and others far behind. Interestingly, this amount is equal to the country's annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which, according to a Financial Express report quoting Swiss Investment bank Credit Suisse, in April 2007, said India had joined the elite club of 12 countries with a trillion dollar economy. In other words, it means that a few privileged Indians have in their personal accounts abroad what the whole nation generates through hard work in agriculture, industry, commerce, employment and other fields in full one year. This amount alone should be sufficient to wipe out much of the misery and poverty in the country.

It goes without saying that successive governments at the Centre sat over the issue and did nothing either to detect the transfer of illegal money abroad or to prevent the drain further. Between 2002 and 2006 alone, according to Prof. Vaidyanathan's estimate, over # 136 billion (Rs. Six lakh crores) trickled out of India. 

There is no gainsaying the fact that this crime of swindling of such enormous amounts of money to foreign countries could be possible only with the direct or indirect connivance of those in power.  They not only failed to nab and nail the culprits through diplomatic channels, but also to enact a stringent law to detect this transgression of law and punish the guilty. What they seem to have so far done is only to pay a lip service to this phenomenon which is a crime against the nation.

All attempts to track these illegal funds have only proved futile as these were half-hearted, insincere, lacked sense of purpose and a strong will. All that the government seems to be wanting was to appear to the people to be doing something without doing anything. This apprehension is strengthened by the fact that the Indian government only attempted to seek information from the Swiss banks about the money and persons of Indian origin involved in a perfunctory manner and in return it only received a retort from the Swiss Bankers' Association which said:. "India can't simply throw its telephone book at Switzerland", curtly said one of its officials, "and ask if any of these people have a bank account here". Obviously, the Indian government had not done its home work which was a must.

It is as much puerile to think that government is in the know of everything about Swiss Bank accounts as much it is that it is totally ignorant. The problem is that it does not want to offend those about whom it has information.  

Last update : 03-10-2009 14:59

Keywords : Crime Deposits in Swiss Banks, Amba Charan Vashishtha

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