If you have dreamt of Rs. 15 lakh getting deposited in your account once the Government of India (GoI) brings black money back to India, then hold on. The government does not even have the estimate of the total amount of this unaccounted money.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when in Opposition, raised the issue of black money as a tool against the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments. He had accused the Congress-led UPA of not taking strong action to bring that money back.
However, the Union Ministry of Finance, now under the leadership of BJP leader Arun Jaitley, while replying to a query under the Right to Information Act has accepted that it has no estimate of the amount of black money of Indians in foreign banks.
Former Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Shailesh Gandhi had asked the Prime Minister’s Office to inform the estimate or different estimates regarding the amount.
“The query was put to it 4-5 years back and it was rejected back then. As a result a full Bench of the CIC passed an order directing the government to share the information regarding black money,” Mr. Gandhi told The Hindu .
“Everything surrounding black money is so hyped that no one has rationally bothered to check the exact amount. Even the government which is probing it has no clue at all,” said Mr. Gandhi.
