The two B’s: Budget and Black Money

The issue of the black money is growing day by day whereas on the other hand there are high level meetings for the budget session. The most effective challenge before the Indian Government will be to tackle both of them at a same time. The most prominent thing that is to be noted is that the Govt. has promised to declare the names of the account holders before the Indian citizens. But thats not enough of it, the masses are aggrieved of the high rates of inflation especially, the prices of petrol. Therefore I consider that the two B’s: Budget and Black Money are both important and co-related issues that the government has to tackle as early as possible.
Today the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has said that Government has issued notices to those who have account in the Swiss as well as the German Bank. The government by taking up the issue of black money has effectively showed that its enough of the drain of India’s wealth outside and that is seriously affecting our economy. Further by arrest of A. Raja can also be related to this that the government is now showing up the ‘responsibility’ of holding the centre. No matter whatever be the scam and scandal, mostly Congress leaders are now found to be involved in it. Just due to some political and legal reasons the Government was not able to declare the names of the account holders in front of public. But now it has promised to do so, what will happen they only know (as no one keeps faith in the government today). Also it has been seen that black money in the form of bribes has adversely affected our FDI growth as the international companies have lost in the legal procedure of the government. Only the main 11 public services have accounted for a bribe of about Rs. 22,000 crores !

The bribes are also form of black money, we know; we also know that it can be reduced by reducing the rates of the taxes and reducing the number of taxes. Just one thing to do is to bring more population under the tax system and take a little tax from everyone. The bureaucrats are found to be most corrupted, do you know why ? Because they are given very much less payments; if their payments will be increased to a bit good of Rs. 60,000, I think the corruption rate in India can be effectively controlled. The Black money, as told by Hon’ble Finance Minister of India that is stabbed abroad may be anything between Rs.10,000 crore to Rs. 70,000 crore !  Such a huge amount that has been deposited abroad is really a theft of the Indian wealth.
Now it comes to the budget. Budget is to be defined such by the council that the aggrieved common man should get atleast some relief by itself. The average GDP growth as expected by the Finance Minister was about 8% but to his contradiction it was 8.4% for the fiscal year ’10-’11. So it seems that the budget of the previous year was much better for the Indians. But now the major challenge is that, after so much so scams and scandals, India’s position and image in the global atmosphere needs to be improved, FDI is to be improved, for that purpose budget is the most important power in the hands of the government, it has to use it efficiently. Moreover, there should be a policy or a strategy planned by the government that will effectively reduce the petrol prices, which have been increased for 7 time in the 10 months ! The Defense of the nation will be the major obstacle for the budget. Now-a-days it has been a hit on the news channels and newspapers about the old and outdated weapons that the Indian Defense Staff uses. So government will have to clear up the scratch before a good public opinion is aroused in the country.
Thus bringing black money back in India and simultaneously approving a Budget that will effectively curb the inflation are the two major tasks before the Govt. The developed economies will surely have an eye on these issues. But its in their hand, lets hope for both the things to get settled well in there place. JAI HIND.

Finally the Congress Government agrees for a JPC, could have taken this action long time back

The whole winter session of Parliament was made useless over the controversy about getting a JPC in place for investigating the 2G scam. The Government was adamant over its refusal, making light of the efforts of the various opposition parties in demanding the JPC; the Prime Minister even claimed that he was ready to answer any queries posed by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament. It took some time to puncture that claim, with the PAC finally revealing that forget the Prime Minister, they cannot even call a Minister. All they can do is look at records and call officials (which they have started doing, having interesting meetings where they called the CBI chief, the RBI Governor, and so on – trying to come up with challenges to the front presented by the Government). There was intense speculation that the Prime Minister was evading the JPC since it has the power to question him, and it would be very embarrassing for him to answer the series of questions of why he stood by while A Raja was changing policies to favor a set of corporates and give them a precious natural resource, the 2G spectrum. That Manmohan Singh has no good answers to these questions is very apparent when he gave the interview to newspaper editors and made the acknowledgement that for the sake of keeping the coalition going, there are compromises that need to be made. When the JPC (even one where a Congress MP is the head) asks these questions, what will the PM say ?
So, finally the Congress has accepted that it is far more embarrassing for them if Parliament does not function, especially when the Budget session is underway, and hence the concession by the Government that a JPC will be setup. The opposition parties seemed determined to prevent Parliament from functioning, a rather extreme step, but then in the 2G scam, the Government has only acted when forced to do so.

However, it is not clear whether the setting up of a JPC will really do anything. The CBI was dragging its feet at taking any action, and the Government was not even accepting that there was a problem. It was the sustained media campaign, and then the twin blows of the report by the CAG (which projected 3 difference revenue loss figures, with the highest figure of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore capturing the attention of the public) and the push by the Supreme Court to get into the root of the matter that derailed the campaign of the Congress. The attempt by the new minister, Kapil Sibal, to white-wash the figure and claim that there was no revenue loss only served to reduce his own credibility, and now he is not taken seriously in terms of taking any sort of strong action.
The Supreme Court has been the force that has pushed the Government relentlessly, taking on the garb of the Chief Investigator, and getting the CBI to act. What can be more embarrassing for a Government than the concept that the highest court of the land claims that the CBI will investigate the case without any interference, to the extent that the Government would now be hesitant to try and tweak the working of the agency. The Prime Minister is aware of the heavy dose of public attention that any adverse comments by the court could have on his own credibility (or what is left of it).