91% Crorepatis in Team Modi Hyderabad : India is poor but Indians are rich, goes a popular saying. As if to prove this popular perception, an overwhelming majority of Union Ministers in the NDA government are crorepatis.
Going by their declarations of assets and liabilities, it is clear that 91 per cent of the Union ministers are crorepatis, with average assets of each minister valued at Rs 14.32 crore. They have submitted their declarations to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
As per the PMO website, the highest quantum of assets have been declared by Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitely (Rs 114.03 crore), followed by Harsimrat Kaur Badal of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) (Rs 108.31 crores) and Piyush Goyal of BJP (Rs 94.66 crores).
The lowest value has been declared by Sudarshan Bhagat of BJP (Rs 59.13 lakhs) followed by Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava of the BJP (Rs 65.71 lakhs) and Ramvilas Paswan of Lok Janasakthi Party (Rs 95.71 lakhs).
The Association Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) have analyzed the declarations of all the 45 Union ministers, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and compared it with the assets declared by them in their last election affidavit/asset declaration.
The analysis found that most of the ministers failed to give the present market value of the assets they own. ADR and NEW have felt that not declaring the value of assets is akin to not making a disclosure at all.
Apart from that, some ministers have not given the present market value of the immovable assets they have declared on the PMO website. The organisations said that for the comparison of assets of Union ministers from Lok Sabha, they have considered their election affidavits from 2014 Lok Sabha elections and compared it with their asset declarations on the PMO's website as on October 10, 2014.
It was found that the cause of changes in assets for many ministers is largely due to the lack of any standardized format for ministers' asset declarations. Many ministers have not given the value for many assets declared.
The purpose of the ministers' declaration is to encourage financial transparency. That purpose is belied when the declarations are not made in the spirit of the instructions issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs. 'It is strongly recommended that the asset declarations should be made in a standard format, preferably in the format of the election affidavit,' former Union secretary E A S Sarma said.
It was observed that even though the Code of Conduct states clearly that the asset disclosures should also be accompanied by the business interests, none of the ministers have declared any financial/pecuniary interest.
The format for declarations should make it mandatory for the ministers to also disclose their business interests along with the asset details. The Code of Conduct should also make it mandatory for the ministers to disclose their IT returns in public interest.
This will further the spirit of transparency and accountability in the disclosures by the ministers. The declarations of 45 ministers were analysed out of which 37 ministers had contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 8 Rajya Sabha ministers who had not contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2014.
News Posted: 25 October, 2014
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