Mumbai : Industry chambers welcomed the White Paper on black money tabled in Parliament on Monday and said it would help in formulating an effective policy to deal with unaccounted money.

However, they suggested that the government should also initiate electoral reforms to check the menace.

“Suggesting electoral reforms and bringing a voluntary disclosure scheme could be explored without any impunity for anti-national or money laundering activities be allowed,” Assocham said in a statement on Monday.

Another industry chamber Ficci said steps to track the root cause of black money generation, such as electoral funding needs, to be debated in Parliament.

Commenting on the White Paper on black money tabled by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Lok Sabha, it said: “The White Paper has implicitly not recommended any specific measures for tracking the root cause of black money generation such as electoral funding and cash generation for meeting the demands of rent seeking personnel.”

Ficci hopes that these issues will be brought up in the debate on the White Paper. It said that as per estimates, the total black money stashed abroad is estimated at roughly Rs 45 lakh crore which is about 50 percent of India’s GDP and is nine times the size of the country’s fiscal deficit.

“Even if 10 per cent of such black money is brought back to the system, India can generate a fiscal surplus,” chamber’s Secretary General Rajiv Kumar said in a statement on Monday.

He welcomes the inclusion of its suggestion made to the Finance Minister for entry into a special agreement with Switzerland on the lines successfully done by the UK, Germany and Austria.

“Such a scheme is highly feasible as this has been demonstrated in the agreement already concluded. This scheme has no future moral hazard as the agreement includes the payment of this stipulated tax rate on these deposits in the future,” he said.

The decision to estimate the size of the black money both inside and outside India through the involvement of research organisations is also a positive step, and will clearly allow for effective policy formulation in future, Ficci said.

The White Paper will open meaningful debate on the need for taking strong steps by the government in curbing generation of black money with deterrence, Assocham added.