Bengaluru: In what be easily construed as a major achievement by the Narendra Modi government in its fight against black money, it will get information about financial accounts held by Indians in Switzerland.  

The Modi government had promised that it would seek details from Switzerland since it won the elections in the May of 2014.

"India will receive information of the calendar year 2018 in respect of all financial accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland. This will be a significant step in the government's fight against black money as the era of Swiss bank secrecy will finally be over," the Income Tax department said in a tweet.

Also read: Banking frauds: CBI raids 50 locations against defaulters; conducts searches in 12 states

The announcement follows meeting of a Swiss delegation led by Nicolas Mario Luscher, Deputy Head of Tax Division, State Sectt for International Finance, with Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey and senior tax officials of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), as quoted by India Today.

The first automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) under Common Reporting Standard (CRS) would start from next month.

During the 2-day meeting in the Capital on August 29-30, both sides discussed bilateral exchange of information matters to expedite execution of tax information sharing requests made by India in specific cases.

"Enhancing collaboration in offshore tax compliance matters were also discussed," the department said.

Interestingly, in the year 2017, there was an increase of 50% in relation to Indians parking their money in Swiss banks. The amount corresponding to this percentage was a whopping Rs 7,000 crore.

This was in stark comparison to the deposits made by other countries, which rose only by a slender margin of 3%.

On the other hand, while the money stashed by Indians in Swiss banks rose, its neighbour Pakistan's fell by over 21 per cent to a record low of Rs 7,700 crore in that year.