Finance Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said after the Narendra Modi-led government came to power in 2014, the amount deposited in Swiss National Bank has been dropped by 80 per cent between 2014 and 2017. Replying during the Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, the finance minister said the earlier data claiming 50 per cent increase was misinterpreted.

Clarifying media reports citing Swiss Banks’ annual statistics showing a rise of 50 per cent in deposits by Indians in 2016-17, Goyal pointed out that the data is misleading as it includes non-deposit liabilities, business of Swiss branches, inter-bank transactions and fiduciary liability.

Goyal said that in his letter to the Indian government, Swiss Ambassador Andreas Baum mentioned that in India it is frequently assumed that any assets held by Indian residents in Switzerland are undeclared (black money).

Talking to reporters outside Parliament, the finance minister said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi raked up the issue without understanding the seriousness of the matter. “He's habitual of making allegations without knowing the reality … And now we have the Swiss government dismissing his claims,” he mentioned.

He went on to add that the Centre has taken a series of measures to check black money generation while the Congress during the UPA regime had done nothing.

In June, the news agency PTI reported that India moved up to 73rd place in terms of money parked by its citizens and companies with Swiss banks. The latest data from the Swiss National Bank (SNB) showed an increase of over 50 per cent during 2017 to CHF 1.01 billion (about Rs 7,000 crore), the agency mentioned.

Union Minister Arun Jaitley had also clarified that it would be erroneous to assume that all money deposited in the Swiss Banks is illegal. Criticising the Opposition parties for running an 'ill-informed' campaign, he had said, “to assume that all the deposits are per se tax evaded money or that Switzerland in the matter of illegal deposits is what it was decades ago, is to start on a shaky presumption.”