Black Money - A MeduVada Bill
SPEAKING in the Lok Sabha on the Bill, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, the Congress MP said, “The fact is, our good Finance Minister once upon a time used to enjoy good South Indian food. He has given us a meduvada Bill - a Bill with a big hole in the middle of it. Like the meduvada, we are seeing the lack of means of obtaining information about those whom we want to actually prosecute. There is a big hole in the middle of the Bill. You can announce jail, you can announce fine but you cannot fine or jail unknown people. Do you have the names of people or do you have the means of getting them?"
He added, "What this Bill is doing for the Government is like modern dating. It offers short term gratification without long term commitment or long term consequences."
Problem is not foreign : He made some more interesting observations: this Bill rests on the premise that foreign assets and foreign accounts are the principal problem in black money. They are not. We actually have no real idea of the scale of the problem. The Ministry of Finance says that there is no official estimate. They are right. We have all heard a number of figures advanced during this debate. The most objective source the US based Global Financial Integrity came up with a report saying that in the entire period from 1948 to 2008, there was 213 billion dollars lost which is about Rs.20 lakh crore. The hon. Member from Andhra Pradesh mentioned a more recent report of Rs.28 lakh crore. But you are still ending up not with Rs.15 lakh per Indian but under Rs.25,000 per Indian. So, first of all the scale of the problem is much smaller than the people assume. More importantly, the domestic black money is a much bigger figure and is a much larger problem.