ETBrandEquity: New Delhi: Wednesday,
March 29, 2017.
An RTI query
has revealed that finance ministry spent a whopping sum of Rs 90.75 crore on
the promotion of Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) through different modes of
media.
A
Bareilly-based RTI activist, Mohammed Khalid Jilani, filed an RTI query with
the ministry of finance asking whether there was a proposal pending with the
government about scrapping currency notes in the two denominations of 500 and
1,000 after the income declaration scheme (IDS) had ended.
Jilani had
also asked for names and address of those people and organizations who had
suggested scrapping of the two currency notes. He had two more questions for
the ministry. In his RTI request, he wanted to know what were the reasons for
accumulation of domestic black money which had come to light during the review
of the IDS. The final question was about the amount of money the finance
ministry had spent on publicity of IDS.
This RTI was
filed on October 17, 2016 and a month before Prime Minister Narendra Modi
announced demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes.
As reply of
his RTI was awaited for months, Jilani filed an appeal on November 2016.
Following his appeal, the RTI was transferred to the directorate of income tax
which recently replied that a sum of Rs 90.75 crore was spent on the promotion
of Income Declaration Scheme through different modes of media.
"The
Centre ended up spending a huge sum of Rs 90.75 crore only on advertisements
but only Rs 65,250 crore of undisclosed assets were declared through the much-
hyped IDS," said Jilani.
However,
directorate of income tax said other queries in the RTI were not related with
their office.
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