(NDTV)
On a day after India’s biggest tax reform came into force, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday vowed to continue the crackdown on black money and announced that the government cancelled registration of one lakh firms over the last 48 hours and was probing 37,000 shell companies on suspicions of funneling black money. Also, he said, 3 lakh other companies were under the scanner for suspicious transactions.
PM Modi patted his back for delivering on his promise to clean up the economy and cited recent statistics about the sharp decline in deposits by He called them an important pillar of the Indian economy and appealed to their patriotism to nudge them not to help their clients fudge their accounts.
The prime minister said it required courage to act against a large number of companies as he had, and told them that this courage came from “desh bhakti”, or patriotism. “Your patriotism is not less than mine,” PM Modi told them. But, how is it possible that India had just 32 lakh taxpayers who declared an annual income of more than 10 lakh when there were 2 crore engineering and management graduates and 8 lakh doctors. When 2.18 crore people travelled abroad last year alone. That, he said, was India’s bitter truth.
PM Modi asked his audience to take a pledge to bring people in the tax bracket rather than boasting about the number of clients they saved from paying taxes. It is said that a family which loses its house in a fire can stand on its feet, rebuild the house if they work together. But if one of them steals, there is no hope. The same principle applied for the economy too.
