GUWAHATI: As part of its efforts to keep black money or unaccounted money at bay in the run up Lok Sabha election in the Northeast Region, sleuths of Income Tax Department have made cash seizures of more than Rs. 1.50 crores across North East by the end of the very first week of this intensified drive.
The Directorate of Investigation of Income Tax department, North East Region has been on a special drive since notification of General Elections by ECI in its effort to restrict use of black money to influence voters during the forthcoming polls across the Seven Sisters states.
It has been actively collaborating with state government authorities, CISF, banks and several other government agencies to monitor flow of undisclosed money.
The Directorate is actively monitoring high value suspicious transactions of cash deposits and withdrawals in banks. Banks are required to report all deposits and withdrawals above Rs. 10 lakhs to the Investigation Wing of Income Tax for necessary action. The Wing is also keeping an eye on suspicious transactions reported by Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of India based in New Delhi.
District level Surveillance Teams have fanned out to cover 112 districts of the seven poll bound states in North East and a control room in each state capital is coordinating their intelligence input. Air Intelligence Units (AIUs) of the Wing are active in all major airports and interceptions and seizures of cash have been done in different airports in the past one week.
In the coming days the directorate is going to increase human intelligence inputs and systemic analysis of its database. Several discrete inquiries have also been initiated.