by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
54 of 77 Modi ministers fail to file their Asset details
Modi foregoes his royalty from books
Jaitley richest, Paswan poorest
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, Oct.14
A large number of Ministers in the Modi government have not heeded to the directive of the Prime Minister to file their assets and liabilities details by August 31, 2017.
According to official details available, only 23 ministers of the 77-member Council of Ministers have complied with the directive and filed their return which is mandatory under the rules and procedures. Of the 28 Cabinet Ministers including the Prime Minister, 19 filed their return. However, the compliance went for a toss when it came to Ministers of State. Of the 48 Ministers of state including those holding Independent charge, only four deemed it fit to submit their assets/liabilities return. The Prime Minister was most prompt in complying his own directive and was the first to declare his assets followed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Health Minister J P Nadda, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari also filed their return.
But Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal who is amongst the richest women Union Ministers with Rs 87.45 crores (2014-15) has not declared her assets for the current year. Woman & Child Welfare Minister Maneka Gandhi, Heavy Industries Minister Anant Geete, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Home Minister Rajnath Singh , Chemicals & Fertiulizers Minister Ananth Kumar are among those who didn't file their return so far. It may, however, be mentioned that all the ministers had filed their return as desired during 2014-15 and 2015-16. But they didn't comply during this reason.
According to the Code of Conduct issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, it is mandatory for Union Ministers to furnish details of their assets and liabilities every year by August 31. The code applies to states as well and needs to include full disclosure of ministers’ family members as well. The asset declaration has to include the assets of the wife and dependent children and also give details of liabilities.
For instance, the assets of Prakash Javadekar are pegged at Rs 7.86 crores. But he and his wife have a liability of Rs 3.05 crores. A glance at the return filed by the ministers including the PM showed that there has not been any astronomical rise in their income & assets. The rise has been very marginal. The declaration made by PM makes an interesting reading where in his fixed deposits have swelled from Rs 51.27 lakhs to Rs 90.26 lakhs. Surprisingly, the PM's income from royalty of book vanished in thin air during 2016-17. During the previous year, Modi earned Rs 12.35 lakhs from the sale of his books as royalty. It seems, he has given royalty as charity which remains undisclosed. His income showed a growth of Rs 28 lakhs to Rs 2.01 crores whereas his income during 2015-16 was Rs 1.73 crores.
Arun Jaitley remains the ruchest ministers in the government though his assets have shown a marginal decline ever since he became a minister.
