After 3 Years, Black Money Study is Incomplete

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had on May 27, ordered constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money. The 11-member SIT, which has Justice M B Shah, former judge of the Supreme Court as chairman and Justice Arijit Pasayat, former judge as vice-chairman, has held one sitting. 

Addressing the joint sitting of Parliament, President Pranab Mukherjee has recently said that the government was determined to remove corruption and the menace of black money from the country. 

"My government is determined to rid the country of the scourge of corruption and the menace of black money. As a first step in this direction, the government has already constituted a SIT to unearth black money stashed abroad. 

"This will be followed up vigorously by proactively engaging with foreign governments," Mukherjee had said on June 9. 

So far, there is no official assessment on quantum of black money stashed in Indian and abroad. 

"The issue of black money has attracted a lot of public and media attention in the recent past. So far there are no reliable estimates of black money generated and held within and outside the country," the finance ministry had said while ordering the studies. 

The different estimates on quantum of black money range between $500 billion to $1,400 billion. A study by Global Financial Integrity has estimated the illicit money outflow to be $462 billion. 

"These estimates are based on various unverifiable assumptions and approximations. Government has been seized of the matter and has, therefore, commissioned these institutions to get an estimation and sense of the quantum of illicit fund generated and held within and outside the country," the ministry had said in a press release issued on May 29, 2011. 

As per the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the study, it was to assess or survey unaccounted income and wealth and profile the nature of activities engendering money laundering both inside and outside the country. 

The study was to identify, among others, important sectors of economy in which unaccounted money is generated and examine causes and conditions that result in generation of unaccounted money.

With PTI inputs.