NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, while calling for a greater degree of transparency in political funding, said India was being funded by invisible money for 70 years and Election Commission failed to curb the use of ‘invisible money’ in it.
Delivering the inaugural address at the Delhi Economics Conclave 2017 here today, Finance Minister also criticised the political parties along with the Election Commission and said that the political system should be more transparent.
He said that for 70 years, invisible funds created helplessness in economy, but his government is working on tracking invisible economy.
“For 70 years, India’s democracy has completely been funded by invisible money; elected representatives, governments, political parties, Parliaments and I must say that the Election Commission completely failed in checking it,” Mr Jaitley said.
He said that the need of the hour is to build political support for good economics. Without political support it is hard to achieve the desired result. FM said, “Sooner the concept of shell companies collapses, the better it will be for the economy and the country” Mr Jaitley said that the impact of digitisation is visible in Indirect & direct tax system.
He said, “Despite having personally asked political parties, both orally in Parliament and in writing, to offer a better solution than the electoral bonds, not one has come forward till date, because people are quite satisfied with the present system.”
He further said, “Every second day, there’s a debate on television how political parties and leaders have utilised those funds. I think when we deal with the subject of cash, it doesn’t merely relate to businesses and the leakages being blocked, but also deals with how political system is now going to be funded, hopefully, in the future, by at least more transparent methods and cleaner money.”
Emphasising the need for more investment in infrastructure, Finance Minister said, “In additional to developmental challenges, including our ability to spend more on infrastructure, large investment in rural areas in education and healthcare, digitisation and cash are two important subjects to be discussed, since these areas had been overlooked, which leads to a large amount of tax noncompliance, illegal transactions and created a situation of helplessness.”
Jaitley said that the introduction of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 and Benami Property Law in 2016 helped curb round-tripping of tax evaded money. The Minister also hit out at Indian businesses for functioning under the belief that banks don’t have to be repaid, revealing that one firm had even claimed in a Court of law that the right to not repay banks is part of the Right to Equality.
“Therefore, steps had to be taken to make a significant impact. If we look at the totality of the various steps we have taken rather than look at them in an isolated manner, each one of them are decisions which will not only have a great long term impact but also has a substantial ethical rationale behind it,” the finance minister asserted. (agencies)
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