NEW DELHI: The Indian government might invoke constitutional provision to put a ceiling on borrowings and would soon come out with measures to tap black money for development purposes, federal finance minister Madhu Dandavate said Thursday.
Dandavate said the government would have to take the hard option of moving towards invoking Article 292 of the constitution to put a ceiling on borrowing.
Painting a precarious foreign exchange reserve position and difficult balance of payment position. He said one third of the foreign borrowing went towards debt servicing which a developing country like India could not afford. If this situation was allowed to continue, a time might come when “we would have to borrow only to repay ‘our debts,” he added.
The finance minister said that estimates put the black money at around Rs 8,00,000 million of which rs 4,00,000 million was by way of gold smuggling in the country. The measures contemplated included attracting investments for slum improvement and low and middle income housing and industralisation of backward areas.
Besides, there was a proposal to allow nonresident Indians (NRIS) and other Indians going abroad to bring limited quantity of gold as a step to discourage smuggling of the yellow metal, he said inaugurating the annual economic.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 15, 1990
