District Collector P Dayanand convened a meeting of the bankers in the district for issuing necessary directives in view of the forthcoming Assembly polls in the State.
Speaking at the meeting, Dayanand said that the bankers would play a crucial role in the Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh.He said that the Election Commission has fixed the ceiling for poll related expenses to be made by the candidates. The ceiling fixed for the candidates is Rs 16 lakh for meeting the poll expenses.
The bankers had been entrusted with the responsibility of opening separate bank accounts for the candidates besides monitoring all their poll related transactions, Dayanand said.
As soon as the poll dates are announced, there should be no delay in opening the bank account of the candidates by the bankers by offering them the necessary cheque books, he said. The Collector directed that in case the candidates exceed the ceiling for poll expenses or deposit more money than the maximum allotted amount, the bankers need to immediately inform the District Polling Officer.
He said that as soon as the poll campaigning commences, the teams formed for monitoring the expenditure being made by the candidates would begin their task.
Dayanand said that any unusual transactions being made from any of the accounts in the banks need to be reported immediately during the polling process on a daily basis to the District Polling Officer. In case of any suspicious bank transaction which involves withdrawal of cash of `1 lakh or more must be immediately reported by the bankers to the District Polling Officer, he said.
Dayanand said that any unusual transaction taking place in the banks from a single bank account through the ‘RTGS’ system must be reported to the District Polling Officer who would then forward the case to the Investigation Directorate of the Income Tax Department for further action to find out if the money is being used in the polling process.
The bankers suggested that they be provided with the list of candidates announced to contest polls with the commencement of the polling process.