Black Money and White Talks

• "Black money abroad: More names disclosed to Supreme Court"

The big issue that hogs the limelight today is the names of individuals who has money in safe havens abroad. There may a few thousands from India who deposit and forget  as more money accumulates and nature invites such persons to give them company. As usual big noise is made on this issue. The press and the public pretend not to see the burgeoning  billionaires who refuse to share their wealth with the  unfortunate. 

When big money is made after cheating millions they call such persons as successful people and such persons start writing their own success stories too. For instance a boy who was just an assistant in a petrol bunk grows to be a millionaire and the gullible public is made to believe that he did hard work. As if the remaining millions hardly worked these men of great eminence start talking of smart work and shrewd work. 

The perennial love for gold and land make people amass wealth for generations. In the 17th century we had only a few Mughal kings who wanted to build huge empire. Today every one of us wants to have his/her own empire. It is common in our country to see people have multiple accounts in multiple financial institutions on multiple names in multiple places. Similarly people have immovable properties in multiple locations and of late Indians have started to purchase farms in far off Africa, Canada and in many more nations. 

We need to have a system to locate the unaccounted wealth. We need to evolve a payment system where the pay is equitable for all. In the era of liberalization the rich becomes richer and the poor becomes the poorer. More cars and more malls and more computers do not show the real face of India. 

Unaccounted wealth is there with all. I read the sales of gold in one city alone is around 40 tons of  gold within 24 hours. Such is the craze for gold.  I do watch people are buying gold in the quantities of kilos nowadays. At least 10% of the 250 million households in India has got 250 grams and above quantity of gold.  People buy gold as if they are mere chocolate bars. 

One requires a strong political will to declare such wealth as illegal and confiscate such properties. We can come out with an upper ceiling for the possession of immovable and movable properties.

Within the country millions of defaulters are there who avail loans and do not repay.  Are we ready to declare the names of defaulters  who owe 1 million dollars and above to our banks? 

Better to clean up our own  backyard before we proceed further?