Between 2002-2011, corrupt Indians siphoned off a total of Rs 21,00,000 crore ($343 billion) worth of black money into offshore bank accounts. Rank wise, we are world’s 5th most corrupt country in terms of black money outflow. These stunning revelations were included in a report titled “Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2002-2011” which was released by Global Financial Integrity, Washington-based research and advocacy organization which is supported by Ford Foundation.
For the year 2011, we were proudly placed at #3 in terms of total black money outflow. During that year, our corrupt elite sent across Rs 5,04,000 crore abroad as black money. Due to meteoric rise of Mexico and China, our position, fortunately, slipped to #5 for the overall decade.
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Illicit Financial Flows from the Top Ten Developing Economies, 2002-2011
Global Financial Integrity (GSI) president Raymond Baker said while releasing this report, “As the world economy sputters along in the wake of the global financial crisis, the illicit underworld is thriving—siphoning more and more money from developing countries each year,”
Overall, the developing countries of the world during this period of 2002-2011 lost around $1.9 trillion worth of money into the unknown abyss filled with corruption, black money, crime and greed.
GSI tracked 15 developing countries for this research, out of which 6 are in Asia: China, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines; 2 in Africa: Nigeria and South Africa; 4 in Europe: Russia, Belarus, Poland and Serbia; 2 in South America: Brazil and Mexico and one in Arab region: Iraq. Overall, During the period of 2002-2011, China led the pack with outflow of $1.08 trillion as black money, followed by Russia at $880 billion, Mexico at $461 billion, Malaysia at $370 billion. This outflow of black money all over the world is increasing at an alarming rate of 10.2% every year.
You can find the country wise ranking here and year-on-year data on Black money export here.
Just imagine for a second that this Rs 21 lakh crore was not siphoned off from India, and it stayed with us; then what we could have achieved?
Flyovers:
A standard flyover of 10 kms may cost anywhere between Rs 50 crore to 100 crore anywhere in India. With Rs 21 Lakh Crore, we could have built 21,000 such flyovers.
Metro Rail:
Delhi Metro was built at an approximate cost of Rs 10,000 crore. With all these black money, we could have built 210 metro rails all across India. All Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities could have been covered.
Highways:
Golden Quadrilateral Highway Project, the most ambitious road project by government of India which covers 5600 Kms (connecting all 4 metros) is costing around Rs 36000 crore. With Rs 21 Lakh crore, we could have built 58 such projects or covering 3,26,666 kms of highway!
Fighter Jet:
A single F-35 fighter jet costs Rs 1200 Crore. With all this black money, we could have bought 1750 such fighter jets.
Steel Factory:
Corus Steel factory in UK was bought by TATA Steel for Rs 45,000 crore; it was 4 times larger than TATA Steel and has 45,000 employees. 46 such steel factories all over India can be built with Rs 21,00,000 crore.
College:
A state of the art Engineering College can be built for Rs 100 crore; 21,000 engineering colleges could have been constructed by using this black money.
Buildings:
Burj Khaleefa, world’s tallest man-made structure was built using Rs 9000 crore; 233 such Burj Khaleefa’s could have been built using Rs 21,00,000 crore.
Sometimes, my mind goes numb just by imagining the loss incurred by Indians due to corruption and crime.
Who will resolve this?
