A post is being widely shared on social media claiming that Punjab tops the list of states in the foreign inward remittances category, whereas Gujarat has the most number of Fugitive Economic offenders.
Claim: Punjab tops the list of states in the foreign inward remittances category, whereas Gujarat stands first in having the greatest number of Fugitive Economic offenders.
Fact: According to the latest RBI report on India’s Inward remittances for 2020-21, Maharashtra tops the list by contributing 35.2% of total remittances, while Punjab stands 9th with a share of 3%. Also, the Government has not categorised the Fugitive Economic Offenders based on the state they belong to. People from other states are also mentioned in the list. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
According to RBI’s latest report on India’s Inward Remittances for 2020-21, Maharashtra tops the list of states with a share of 35.2% in total remittances to India. Punjab stands at 9th place with a share of 3%.
Even according to the previous data for 2016-17, Punjab was not the top contributing state.
Coming to the list of Fugitive Economic offenders, the Government has not categorised these people based on the state they belong to.
People from other states were also mentioned in the list. For example, Vijay Mallya was born in West Bengal and elected twice to Rajya Sabha from Karnataka. Nilesh Parekh is a Kolkata-based businessman facing ₹ 7,000 crore default, went offshore.
To sum it up, Punjab is not the top contributor for India’s inward remittances, and there is no data to suggest that Gujarat has the greatest number of Fugitive Economic Offenders.