Committee recommended making CEIB a Nodal Agency to share Black Money Information

The committee set up to review the role and structure of Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB) recommended that the CEIB maintain a national database of economic offences investigated by various agencies at the Centre and in states. Maintenance of national database by CIEB will ensure effective coordination among the various enforcement and regulatory agencies. The four member committee to study the role of CEIB was set up in March 2011 by the Finance Ministry and was headed by S. S. Khan, retired member, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).

The Union government opined that in the face of growing complexity and sophistication of economic offences better collaboration among various agencies is required for combating tax evasion and other serious economic offences.

The panel also recommended a hub and spoke structure between the CEIB and enforcement agencies at the central and state levels with the CEIB as the nodal agency for better collection and dissemination of financial intelligence. The agencies will be expected to share information with the CEIB, which, in turn, will collate and analyze the data and provide an overall picture to the government. The sharing of information will enable CEIB to provide back-end support, linkages and insights harnessing the power of databases and data analytics to the agencies. The committee also recommended a series of steps to empower and modernise the CEIB and equip it with IT enabled tools to effectively perform its role in the changing economic scenario.

Terms of reference of the committee included identifying relevant commercial databases for business intelligence analysis and suggesting structural linkages between CEIB and FIU-IND.

Currently, the CEIB database contains information on about 1200 economic offenders and 10000 cases of economic offences.