Why UPA is not serious to curb black money?

A recent sting operation by a team of Indian investigative journalists has once again brought the focus back on the issue of “black money”. Unfortunately, this issue too has been pushed under the carpet by the Congress led UPA government as many other crucial issues.

With much fanfare the UPA government had released a white paper on “Black Money” last year, and that too after growing pressure from all quarters, but since then there seems to be no movement on curbing this menace which is plaguing the Indian economy.

The union finance minister P.Chidambaram neither mentioned this issue in his budget speech this year, nor did the budget documents contain any proposal to curb the black money. This clearly shows that curbing black money and getting black money stashed abroad and within India into the government coffers is not a priority of the Congress and this government.

The track record of this government has been pathetic in dealing with this issue. Take for example the case of Hasan Ali who had allegedly stashed billions of rupees in black money in Swiss Banks. The case had come to light in 2007. It took more than five years for this government to send a request through the Indian envoy in Berne to find out details about the black money. What took this government so long? What was done in 2012, could have been done in 2007, but it wasn’t done. Why? The common man wants answers.

In fact in the same case, the Supreme Court pulled up the Centre in 2011 for going soft on Hasan. It also ordered reinstatement of three Enforcement Directorate officials who were transferred mid-way in the probe. This itself is an enough indication of the intentions of the present day government.

In the last five years, countries like France and Germany have shared lists of names of Indians who have stashed away their black money abroad in these countries. But the UPA government hasn’t followed up these cases with the speed and spirit which was required to do so. Our image, as a nation, has got affected in international arena by this state of inertia that has become hallmark of this government.

According to recent estimates, the illicit assets comprising India’s underground economy account for no less than 50 per cent of our GDP. One can imagine the amount of money which could be realised, had this government acted seriously to probe this issue and take strict action. But even as India’s growth story continues to fade faster than even its worst critics expected, this government has just ignored the important issue of curbing black money!

Union Budget lacks vision

When union finance minister P. Chidambaram started presenting his 8th budget on Feb. 28 in parliament, after the first few lines, in which he mentioned the prevailing grave economic situation, I was ironically reminded of his comments while presenting budget in 2008, “....the four years to 2007-08 have been the best years so far but, may I say with humility, that the best is yet to come.”

Now all of us know what has happened ever since then ! In 2013, we are in a situation which is almost similar to what we faced in 1991. GDP growth is down to 5 %, consumer price inflation isl in double-digits, industrial output is growing merely at 3 percent, current account deficit has ballooned, exports have crashed and the fiscal deficit was barely contained at a whooping high mark of 5.2 per cent for year 2012-13.”

All of us agree that we are in a economic mess. Of course there are some external factors such as global economic slowdown and high oil prices which influence our economy also. But merely blaming the external factors won’t do. Crisis come and go and it is the quality of our response to troubles that matter. The question is that has UPA government responded well enough?

The Union Budget 2013-14 does not reflect the desirable quality of response. What is lacking in this budget is the visionary approach and out of box thinking.
A budget is not merely an accounting exercise but it is a policy document and it defines the direction in which we would be going as a country. But this budget unfortunately appears to have been reduced to accounting exercise with the finance minister focusing largely on making announcements about allocations for different schemes. There was no policy perspective on key issues of inflation and improving delivery mechanism of social sector schemes. These two issues affect almost every Indian.

One of the fundamental flaws of the UPA government’s economic policy is that the government is pegging its hopes of controlling fiscal deficit and generating enough resources for various welfare programmes on the recovery of Indian economy which it perceives to be dependent on three factors- global economic recovery and stable oil prices and a normal monsoon.

Interestingly all these factors are beyond its control. One suspects that probably the UPA government already preparing ground to shift the blame of its non-performance on these factors in days to come.

The government has so far not mentioned anywhere whether it has an alternative plan if these factors do not work in its favour! There are certain internal strengths of Indian economy but there seems to be no plan to harness them, not atleast in this budget.

Vendetta Politics: Pursuit of Truth or Witch-hunt?

As someone who has observed the Indian politics from a very close quarter, for over three decades now, it really pains me to see the current state of Indian polity, wherein political parties are resorting to character assassination and vendetta to destroy their opponents. Instead of spending time in resolving issues facing the nation, they are more interested in character assassination of their political adversaries. This, in my view, is very dangerous for the Indian democracy.

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