The PM Silent about the 50% rise in the Swiss Banks

The news about the money that stashed by Indians in the Swiss banks jumped over 50 percent to Rs 7,000 crores in 2017 (up from Rs 4,660 crores in 2016), the year after the demonetisation phase, the PM had promised to bring back all black money from overseas and put Rs 15 lakhs in every citizen’s bank account. The stashed funds were 47 percent more than all money stashed by other foreign clients of Swiss banks. The money stashed by all foreign clients of Swiss banks rose just three per cent, to around Rs 1,00,000 crores. Mr Modi justified the devastating demonetisation saying it was a huge blow to black money. In reality, the opposite happened.

It was amusing to see the finance minister Piyush Goyal say 40 percent of the funds was because of the liberalised remittance scheme introduced by then finance minister P. Chidambaram, whereby an individual could remit upto $250,000 a year. He further said they were awaiting the data, and asked how the media could assume it was black money or transactions were illegal. As far as Mr Goyal is concerned, the money could be legal or illegal and this will be known only after his inquiry is over.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been silent regarding this issue and it is perplexing, given that he belongs to the twitterati. He can’t ignore the havoc caused by demonetisation in the lives of people, especially in rural India that mainly transacts in cash. Some died as they didn’t have cash for medical treatment, some children were withdrawn from schools as parents had no money for fees.

Mr Modi was reportedly advised by Anil Bokil, a key member of the Arthakranti Sansthan, an RSS-leaning economic advisory body set up by a group of chartered accountants and engineers. This proposal was a one-stop solution to curb black money generation, price rise, inflation, corruption, fiscal deficit, unemployment etc. But Mr Modi chose to implement only demonetisation.