New Delhi, Oct 23 (UNI) Attacking the Union Government over the issue of Demonetisation, the Congress, referring to fresh revelations about allegations of tax evasion in the wake of demonetization , the Congress on Friday demanded that the government should come out with a white paper highlighting the cost and benefits of demonetization.
Addressing a press conference here, AICC spokesperson Gaurav Vallabh said ,’this week, the Vice-President of the Surat BJP unit and Ex-Income Tax Officer Mr. PVS Sarma has come out with serious allegations of tax evasion in the wake of demonetization against a prominent jeweller based out of Surat. The jeweller in discussion had made sales of Rs 96.3 Crores post 8.30 PM on November 8, 2016.
Subsequently, between November 10 and 12 , the jeweller deposited close to Rs 110 Crore cash in the banks. The total tax paid as per the allegations is only Rs 80 Lakhs. What is surprising is that rather than acting on the complaint, the Income tax department has been after the complainant itself. There are certain facts that need to be investigated in this case like many others. There must be thousands of such instances where the investigative agencies either did not do their job well or were asked to turn a blind eye. There have been no records presented to the people regarding the number of such cases investigated, the amount of money in question, how much undisclosed income was found and how much was recovered.In the next couple of weeks, when we would be commemorating the 4th anniversary, we demand that the government should come out with a white paper highlighting the cost and benefits of this Tughlaqi decree.’
Posing several questions to the government on Demonetization, the Congress leader asked how many alleged defaulters has the income tax department probed and what is the undisclosed income unearthed?
He also asked why did the government decide to misuse the machinery to raid the whistleblower instead of instituting an enquiry against the alleged scam? ‘How much black money has the government recovered from such defaulters so far?
Why is the government afraid to place the names of entities involved in such scams, details of defaulters and the transaction trails?,’he saved
Pointing out that the Indian economy is still reeling with the aftershocks of demonetisation, the Congress spokesperson said that the aftermath of Demonetization is that GDP Growth rate plummeted from 8.3 per cent in 2016-17 to 4.2 per cent in 2019-20.
, ‘When we talk of disastrous decisions by the Modi government, the list will be long but Demonetization was a disaster of epic proportions.The Indian economy is still reeling with the aftershocks of this ill-advised move.’
Before starting to accomplish goal, the objective needs to be kept in mind. Unfortunately, the government in its confusion and desperation kept changing goalposts according to the outcome,’ he said.
‘What started as an exercise cited to curb black money was conveniently touted as an exercise to make India a cashless economy,’ Prof Gourav Vallabh said.
He said the aftermath of Demonetization are that ‘1.5 million salaried jobs lost in first four months of 2017, 11 Million salaried jobs were lost in 2018 and the country saw the highest unemployment in 45 years in 2019.’
‘Several sectors were destroyed permanently. Millions of Informal sector jobs were lost and MSMEs have not been able to recover post demonetization: Textiles, Real estate, Jute, Construction are worst hit.
‘Estimates suggest a loss of over 3.72 Crore jobs on account of demonetization in MSME sector alone.
‘Share of manufacturing in the GDP has been on a nosedive from 15.6 per cent in 2015 to 13.7 per cent in 2019, based on World Bank data; Manufacturing Capacity Utilization has seen a continuous decline too.’
