Starting from Jeep Scam in 1948, Congress has left a legacy of corruption and scams in India in her misrule of over six decades. The grand old party has also left a legacy of awarding plum posts to the scammers with the kingpin of first scam of Azad Bharat, Mr V K Krishan Menon being awarded a cabinet berth by first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
The instances of corruption and scams became so frequent during the reign of Indira Gandhi that former Defense Minister George Fernandes had called her ‘Fountainhead of corruption (Bhrastachar ki Gangotri) inside the Parliament. Her successor Rajiv Gandhi candidly confessed that out of Rs. 1 allocated by the Central Government only 15% was reaching at the bottom. This means that over 85% of the Central budget was going into corruption and scams during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi.
The corruption and scams broke all the previous records during 10 years rule by Mr. Silence (Manmohan Singh) and Ms High Command (inaccessible to Media and People of India). People had lost the hope of revival and had almost accepted ‘corruption and scams’ as culture of Indian politics. In this pessimistic political environment Narendra Modi took over the reign of the country in 2014.
Rajiv Gandhi had the highest number of MPs in Lok Sabha and also huge majority in Rajya Sabha but he could not dare to take any step to prevent the corruption. He was dominated by the corrupt leaders within the Congress that he could do nothing but shedding tears on plunging credibility of the country and open loot of the public money. His government enacted Benami Property Act; but could not muster the courage to enforce it. He feared that that corrupt and scammers in the Congress would topple his government.
After taking oath as the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi launched crusade against corruption. In his first cabinet meeting he approved formation of SIT on Black Money which Congress was delaying for years. He did not stop here. He is marching ahead step by step to make India free from corruption. He did not weep like Rajiv Gandhi but challenged the scammers and corrupts. He is leading the crusade from the front. Here are some of his footmarks.
1. In his first cabinet decision Prime Minister Narendra Modi constituted a high power Special Investigation Team (SIT) with former Supreme Court Judge Justice (Retd.) M. B. Shah as Chairman and Justice (Retd.) Arijit Pasayat as Vice Chairperson to investigate Black Money stashed in foreign countries. The previous Congress government was tactically delaying the formation of this committee since 2011 and even violated orders of the Supreme Court. This is the most powerful committee of India since independence as it has chiefs of CBI, IB, CBDT, IT, etc as its members and working under direct supervision of the Supreme Court.
2. By April 2017, the SIT on Black Money submitted six interim reports and detected Rs 70,000 crore of Black Money. The Vice Chairman of SIT, Justice (Retd) Arijit Pasayat says, “The government has accepted most of the recommendations while some are under active consideration.”
3. Modi government dared to enforce Benami Properties (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016 which was pending since 1986. Rajiv Gandhi wanted to implement this rule but could not muster the courage despite having around two third majority in the Lok Sabha. He however used his historic mandate in parliament to kneel before Islamic extremists and overruled the historic judgment of the Supreme Court in Shah Bano case in 1989 with a hope to consolidate Muslim vote bank for Congress. Here we have Modi who is using the people’s mandate to eliminate corruption from India completely. During Congress’s successive governments the scammers and corrupts were more powerful than the Prime Minister but now they are running hither and thither. The leaders of Congress and likeminded parties are now burning the mid night oil to save corrupts and scammers who were their sponsors for generations.
4. The Benami Properties (Prohibition) Act is proving to be very strong in curbing black money as besides land and physical properties it also includes unclaimed bank accounts and their deposits. The law has a provision of 7 year imprisonment and fine which was earlier three year. Now, the government has power to confiscate Benami Properties whether it’s land, bank deposit or in any other form.
5. After demonetization, the IT officials have identified about 14,000 high value properties of more than Rs.1 crore each have been identified where persons have not even filed Income Tax Returns. The investigations are in progress.
6. The data with Income Tax department revealed that for Financial Year 2016-17, 1.26 crore new taxpayers (return filers + non-filers making tax payments) were added to the tax base. It means 1.26 crore more citizens of India joined the list of honest tax payers.
7. After demonetization the collection of income tax has increased about 41.79 % in 2017 in comparison to the same period in 2016-17. The collection of self assessment tax (personal income tax) has also increased by 34.25 % in 2017.
8. The government has cancelled registration of over 1 lakh companies in a single stroke and more than 37,000 shell firms have been identified for strong action. These were fake companies used for money laundering. If a company is shut down, people come on road to protest but nobody came to protest after 1 lakh companies were shut down. It means all of them were fake companies. They existed only on paper used for money laundering by lobbyists and interest groups created and patronized by Congress for decades.
9. So far CBDT has identified 16000 suspected cases of Benami Properties which are being investigated.
10. The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is all time high at $ 62 billion. After Goods and Services Tax (GST) is streamlined, it will increase Ease of Doing Business (EODB) in India and FDI would increase significantly.
11. A major criticism of the previous UPA government was policy paralysis and lack of ownership of problems. The current government is active on all fronts. Modi is personally overseeing stalled projects in infrastructure, power and steel under the Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation (Pragati) Initiative, through a three-tier system (PMO, Union government secretaries, and chief secretaries of states). Twenty such meetings of Pragati have led to a cumulative review of 183 projects with a total investment of Rs +8.79 lakh crore.
12.Income Declaration Scheme (IDS): In response to the Modi government IDS, people declared Rs 65,250 crore of undisclosed assets in the onetime compliance window, which yielded Rs 29, 363 crore in taxes to the government by September 30, 2016.
13.Bilateral treaties on double taxation avoidance agreements with Mauritius, Cyprus and Singapore.
14. For the first time since independence, India breaks into top 100th countries of the world in Ease of Doing Business (EODB) as per the data released by World Bank on October 31, 2017. In 2014, India was on 142th position. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has fixed a target to improve the rankings further and enter into top 50 countries. The ranking is most likely to improve further next year as GST and Demonetization were not included in this calculation. The long jump of India in EODB ranking was due to a series of financial reforms introduced and implemented by Modi government to ensure honest investors are not harassed but corrupts are nailed and weeded out.
15. Real Estate industry had emerged as the biggest sector for black money and money laundering besides large scale cheating with home buyers. Modi government ensured passage of Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 which mandates constitution of Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) at the state government and union territory level within six months of its notification. Several homebuyers were running from pillar to post to get possession after booking flats/villas. They were paying EMI to the banks but builders delayed by 5 to 6 years. Now RERA has been constituted in almost all the states where builders constructing on or above 500 sqm and eight storey buildings are required to register and give full details of their project. In addition there are several provisions in the act to prevent use of black money, money laundering and secure interests of home buyers.
16. In April 2015, Modi government cancelled the FERA license of 8,975 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for not filing details of foreign money they had received under Foreign Contribution Registration Act (FCRA), 2010. There were allegations that several NGOs use the foreign money to support Nuxallite terrorists and religious conversions. Around 18,000 NGOs in the country don’t file annual income and expenditure returns. Some of the NGOs are allegedly involved in anti-national activities like supporting terror groups and large scale religious conversions.
17. By April, 2017, Modi government cancelled nearly 93 lakh fake job cards in the MGNREGA scheme. It means around one crore ‘ghost workers’ were being paid through MGNREGA which was actually going to middlemen, contractors and politicians. Thus a major source of regular corruption and black money was stopped. According to officials the number of fake beneficiaries removed from the scheme was more than 3.1 crore. Thus around 14% of the households engaged by Congress government were ghosts and existed only on paper. If Modi was not the PM, this money would still been going in the hands of corrupts.
18.Modi prevented generation of Rs 50,000 crore of black money by December, 2016 with strict implementation of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme. The government included 84 subsidies like gas subsidy etc. schemes of 17 ministries under DBT scheme thus lakhs of ghost beneficiaries were removed. These ghost beneficiaries were actually ground workers of Congress and likeminded corrupt parties who were sucking the government money on the name of poor by using fake documents. Thus Modi prevented lakhs of crores of money from going in the hands of corrupts thugs and scammers but for them it’s their loss due to Modi. So they are conniving against Modi.
19. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to include almost all the 533 subsidy scheme/ money assistance schemes of Central government under DBT scheme but the corrupt Congress has fielded its fake intellectuals to stop the process on the name of Right to Privacy so that their cadres on the ground can loot 85% of the public money like they were doing in the government of Rajiv Gandhi. If implemented, this will further reduce the loot of public money. For corrupts and scammers it’s loss. The Congress and likeminded political parties are now openly fighting to protect the corrupts and creating hurdles for Modi government from Parliament to Supreme Court. They know if Aadhar is linked with all the government schemes, they would have no way to loot public money.
20. In a historic achievement Narendra Modi government opened over 30.5 crore accounts for the poor people under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) and distributed 22.95 crore Rupay Cards. Opening an account was never so easy for a poor person in India. The government is now directly transferring subsidies and monetary assistance in the accounts of the poor people. The network of middlemen created by successive Congress governments has been almost destroyed and corrupt politicians are panic stricken. Now if government gives Rs 100 to a poor it goes directly in the account of poor. The middlemen are not able to get their commission. They are very angry with Narendra Modi.
21.Narendra Modi government enacted Insolvency and Banking Code 2016 to create a balance in the rights between creditors and borrowers and strengthen the position of creditors. In this Act the rights of home buyers in real estate sector is also protected. Now, companies can’t get away with the money of investors. They can be taken over by the government/court to refund the money of investors. The borrowers cannot escape with the money of the banks. They will also have to cough up. Now, the banks can’t harass genuine borrowers but big companies will have to return the loan on time. These businessmen were had developed a habit to loot the public money from banks are angry with Modi.
22. The funding of terrorists by Pakistan was a known fact in India but successive Congress governments could never muster courage to take action. It was for the first time in history several leaders of terror outfits and their supporters were arrested on terror funding by National Investigative Agency (NIA). The people involved in terror funding and facilitating terror funding were doing their job from New Delhi but no agency could show the courage to take action against them. The NGOs and leaders who were getting money from Pakistan’s ISI for engaging youths in India for anti-national activities particularly in Kashmir are feeling unemployed. The lawyers of terrorists have also lost huge business. They all are angry with Modi.
23. In towns, cities and metros, real estate was a huge source of black money. Builders used to charge from 10% to 30% in cash called as ‘black’ while rest was paid through cheque. Modi government made strict laws to control this. Now you know the culture of ‘black money’ in purchase of flats, homes, land etc has come down. Several initiatives like demonetization, GST and RERA, have minimized illegal practices in real estate sector. Real Estate had also become a huge area for investment of black money. The corrupt builders and their financiers are angry with Modi.
24. Measures like demonetisation have significantly cleansed the election in India. This was evident in UP election where Samajwadi Party and BSP were exposed before the people. Use of tax evaded money for donation to political parties to get undue favours in return is set to reduce in the times to come.
25. Education Mafia: The parents are asked to pay a huge amount in cash on the name of capitation fee/donation at the time of admission of their child. This money is demanded from play school to post graduate. As parents want to ensure the best possible education for their children, these private schools/colleges/universities force them to pay the donation in cash. This generates huge black money in India. Narendra Modi government has tried to control the situation. According to an estimate, capitation fees of around 50 thousand crore is paid at various educational levels from KG to PG in India. This so generated black money often finds its ways to terrorism, election financing and religious conversions. Auditing their financial statements, releasing them on websites, strict monitoring of their funds etc are some other measures set to reduce black money in educational institutes.
26.Hospitals had emerged another center of black money and money laundering in India. The private medical colleges demand lakhs from students as capitation fee/donation at the time of admission and also in between. Furthermore, private hospitals get huge cash from payments which are not shown in the account books. Sometimes unnecessary medical tests and surgeries are recommended for the patients to exploit them. This all money is a huge source of black money. Mafias from various fields also invest their ill gotten money in the hospital to get huge return and make their black money white. Similarly, gangsters and mafias also invest their black money in the film industry for money laundering. The monitoring schemes, online payment scheme, GST have prevented black money up to great extent.
The country is changing. Now, deserving people get their gas subsidy and other money assistance directly into their accounts. Now, if government gives you Rs 100 you get Rs 100 in your account. There is no middle man involved. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has improved the system a lot. There is still need for further improvement and reforms to eradicate corruption forever from India. Please come and support our Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his fight against Congress’ legacy of corruption. Let’s make the country free from CORRUPTION. Let’s make the country free from CONGRESS.
(The writer is former Leader of the House, South Delhi Municipal Corporation and a Member of BJP)