Spurred by public criticism of its poor handling of the black money menace and the Supreme Court's intervention, the UPA's accelerated efforts to ferret out ill-gotten wealth have borne fruit.

The government's persistent black money chase has revealed a goldmine of information on tax evaders. The tax authorities have obtained 9,900 leads from foreign banks about suspicious overseas transactions involving Indian citizens. They are also looking at data on another 30,700 domestic transactions for suspected tax evasion and money laundering, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Wednesday.

The results are beginning to show as the government has been able to ferret out tens of thousands of crores of black money in the last two years after getting information from foreign entities, working on specific leads and conducting raids.

Besides, tax treaties with foreign countries were amended to enable Indian authorities to get their hands on black money details.

Indian authorities made over 300 specific requests for obtaining banking information from foreign jurisdictions.

Addressing the Economic Editors conference, Mukherjee said, "Due to our sustained efforts in the last two years, both domestically as well as internationally, we have been successful in creating an environment where a regular flow of banking information has started." The investigation wing of the income-tax department unearthed concealed income of Rs 3,014 crore in the last five months of the current fiscal. This was after the sleuths carried out focused searches on the basis of information from abroad. The total black money unearthed by this wing over the last two years stands at Rs 18,750 crore.

Meanwhile, the directorate of international taxation has collected Rs 33,784 crore as taxes from cross border transactions in the last two years.

Information on Indians who have overseas bank accounts has been received under the direct tax avoidance agreement (DTAA) with France. In 69 cases, the taxpayers admitted to unaccounted income of Rs 397.17 crore on which taxes of Rs 30 crore have now been recovered.

The finance minister said that the revised tax treaty with Switzerland is expected to improve the inflow of banking information to India substantially. The DTAA will allow India to obtain information from the European nation in specific cases from April 2011.

Mukherjee said that as many as 81 tax treaties with foreign countries had been amended to enable the better flow of financial information and 14 tax information exchange agreements had been signed with four tax havens. India is also constructively engaged with the Mauritius government to update the existing double taxation avoidance convention in line with international practices, he said.

Figures relating to the quantum of illegal funds stashed abroad in tax havens range from $ 500 billion to $ 1,500 billion. But the government has maintained that these figures are based on unverified assumptions.

Instead, the government has set up a committee of experts to estimate the quantum of black money and suggest measures to prevent generation of unaccounted wealth.

A large part of the black money is being generated through transfer pricing mechanism, which shows transactions taking place between a company and its subsidiary firms.

The government was first jolted into action following questions raised by the Supreme Court on the black money issue after which it faced a blitzkrieg from civil rights activists led by Anna Hazare and yoga guru Ramdev.

The Supreme Court had expressed its displeasure over the government's refusal to disclose the names of Indian entities who had stashed black money in overseas tax havens.

It had also appointed a special investigation team to monitor the efforts to bring back black money stashed in foreign banks.

Mukherjee had then announced that the Indian government could not disclose the names of 18 Indian entities - known as the ' Liechtenstein list' - who had stashed black money in foreign banks provided by the German authorities as the information was obtained under "a secrecy clause". This related to money kept in the LGT bank of Liechtenstein.

A special committee has been set up under the chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to examine ways to strengthen the country's laws to curb the generation of black money in the country and its illegal transfer abroad. According to sources, the committee is looking at the issue of bringing in a law that will enable the government to declare wealth generated illegally as a national asset which can then be confiscated.

The issue of enhancing the punishment for tax evasion so that it serves as an effective deterrent is also under discussion.