What she meant by “official estimate”? Perhaps, the government of India estimates, and perhaps the BJP led Union Government of India, under the premiership of PM Narendra Modi. Why Modi government has not been interested in having “official estimate”, especially when Narendra Modi himself had promised during his election campaigns before the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 to bring back the black money and deposit Rs15 lakh to every citizen’s bank account?

Black money in not only stashed abroad but also kept secretly within the county. It is not a secret, and even recently the Indian investigating agencies have found hundreds of crore rupees in black money during their raids in Delhi and Tamil Nadu. And when the black money is being generated within India and stashed abroad in billions, Modi government’s inaction in even getting “official estimate” done is a mystery.

It should be noted that a white paper on black money in India was released in May 2012, and Lok Sabha Secretariat has prepared a reference note in 2014, the very year when the Modi government had come to power. In 2011, the Government had commissioned a joint study by three think-tanks – National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), National Instituted of Financial Management (NIFM) and National Council of Applied Economics and Research (NCAER) – to estimate India entities’ unaccounted wealth both at home and abroad. Modi government did not even care to carry forward such effort to deal with this black money menace.

Indian deposit is Swiss bank has jumped 14 years high in 2021, and Modi government says that they don’t have any “official estimate”. In this context, the 2012 white paper of Government of India can help assess the deterioration during Modi regime. The white paper had put the total Indian deposits in Swiss banks to the tune of $2.1 billion. Even BJP had estimated black money to the tune of $500 billion to $1.4 trillion in 2011, when it was in opposition. The BJP stalwart L K Advani had put the black money figure at $466 billion in 2011. India’s black money rose to 62 per cent of the GDP in 2013 from 35 per cent in 1991.

However, when the BJP led government under the premiership of Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014, it appointed Special Investigating Team (SIT) to bring back black money from abroad. However, it was not the Modi governments initiative, but the government was obliged under a Supreme Court order passed in July 2011.

Dichotomy of the Modi government on bringing back the black money from abroad was came to fore on October 16 that year, when it told the Supreme Court that disclosing the names of those who have deposited money in banks abroad jeopardized tax agreements with nations providing those names to India. The next day on October 17, Modi government told the SC that it could not disclose the names of those who have deposited money in banks abroad, and all amounts deposited in foreign banks by Indian citizens cannot be termed black money.

Nothing substantial done to recover black money from within India and abroad until November 8, 2016, when Modi government announced demonetization of Rs500 and Rs1000 notes. One of the chief arguments of the government was that demonetization would wipe out black money. Presumption was that black money is kept chiefly in cash.

However, the government was not honest in this presumption also, since it provided Rs2000 notes which made keeping huge amount of cash even more easy compared to Rs1000 notes. Moreover, if the presumption is true, today India might have more black money stashed in cash, since by October 2022 India had Rs30.88 lakh crore worth currency in circulation against only Rs17.7 lakh crore at the time of denominations in November 2016, which was 71.84 per cent higher.

The menace of counterfeit notes has also added to the perils of black money. The Latest RBI annual report of this year mentions that counterfeit Indian currency notes increased by 10.7 per cent in the financial year 2021-22 ending on March 31, 2022. It revealed that there was 101.93 per cent rise in fake notes of denomination Rs500. The counterfeit notes of Rs 2000 increase by more than 54 per cent, it reported.

Modi government, as it was reported, expected to extinguish at least Rs3-4 lakh crore of black money, but it failed, because 99 per cent of the demonetised currencies came back to the banking system.

Black money thus continued almost unchecked, and there is parallel black economy as against the white economy. According to the writ petition filed in the Supreme Court of India, the black money accumulated by 2018 was Rs900 lakh crore. In March 2018, it was reported in media that India black money deposited in offshore banks was Rs300 lakh crore.

Though there is no official report available because the government is clueless, other reports indicate that black money has been surging in India faster during the last 8 years of Modi rule because of lenient approach of the government towards the keeper of black money. Political parties, police and government officials are said to gain from the black money.