17th PBD Convention at Indore: Remittances & repatriation of money simplified, says Finance Minister

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): India witnessed a 12 per cent rise in remittances to $100 billion in 2022, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said during the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) convention in Indore.

“I recognise that remittances, which come from abroad by Indians who migrated, are about 100 billion US dollars for the year 2022. This is one of the highest remittances which is coming,” she said.

Finance Minister Sitharaman in conversation with Akhilesh Laddha

Union Finance Minister Sitharaman was replying to leader of Friends of MP’s New Jersey Chapter, Akhilesh Laddha, in a formal interaction held on the sidelines of the 17 th  PBD Convention. Laddha asked the question over challenges being faced during repatriation of money in the event of need.

“Investing and repatriation of money has been simplified. Investing in India and repatriating the earnings out of it has been simplified since the last four to five Union budgets.

Systematically, steps were taken one after the other to make this possible. Under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) for Indian nationals who live in India and want to send money abroad whether it is for education, health care or buying property abroad, one can send money as simply as he or she sends within the country,” the finance minister had said.

She had said that under the LRS, without asking any questions, money could be transferred to whichever currency in a simplified manner to whichever country Indian nationals wanted. However, for investment purposes, there are some compliances for repatriating the money.

Union Finance Minister Sitharaman also addressed various queries of the NRIs about the remittances and repatriation of the money during the formal interaction with the Indian diaspora which had arrived from different cities of the US.

Later, talking to the Free Press, Laddha, who is an IT professional and originally hails from Ratlam, said repatriating money was a matter of concern for the diaspora particularly during the Covid pandemic.