Black money stashed abroad could be 490 billion USD hints panel

New Delhi, June 25: The parliamentary panel on finance in its report submitted to the Lok Sabha said that it is difficult to provide a credible estimate of the black money stashed away overseas by Indians.

The money stashed overseas could be anywhere between 3.6 billion USD to 490 billion USD between 1980 and 2010. The panel headed by Congress leader M Veerappa Moily also states that the government's efforts in bringing back black money is insufficient.

Three separate studies were conducted by institutes such as the National Institute of Public Policy and Finance, National Council of Applied Economic Research and National Institute of Financial Management. In March 2011, the three institutes were asked to conduct studies to assess and survey unaccounted income and wealth both within and outside the country.

The report said that unaccounted income is discovered to be the highest in industries like real estate, mining, pharmaceuticals, pan masala, gutkha, tobacco, bullion, commodity, film and education.

"It appears that the reliable estimation of unaccounted income and wealth inside and outside the country is a difficult task, this inference is validated by the widely varying estimates of the unaccounted income arrived at by these three institutes. The chief economic ddviser has opined that there is no scope for arriving at a common estimate of unaccounted income by combining estimates from the three reports," the panel also said in its report.