The Income Tax department has set up a toll-free control room for the general public to alert it about any suspicious movement of “large sums of cash” in the national Capital in the run-up to the Assembly polls. The investigation wing of the department has set up a control room and complaint monitoring cell at its office here on the instructions of the Election Commission (EC) which wants to curb the use of black money and illegal inducements in the poll process.
The toll-free number —1800110132 — will be monitored round-the-clock and will be supervised by a senior officer in the rank of Joint Director (I-T), a senior official said. The department has also put together a team of chosen sleuths who will be monitoring black money related instances with special emphasis on the measures deployed for the election period, a senior I-T officer said.
Complaints or information regarding movement of large sums of cash and other items suspected to be used for bribing voters during elections will be monitored from the Centre, the officer said. Meanwhile, the Election Commission has directed that all airports, major railway stations, hotels, farm houses,hawala agents, financial brokers, cash couriers, pawn brokers and other suspicious agencies/persons should be kept under close surveillance by the income tax department. The Commission has also directed to open air intelligence unit in all airport of the poll bound states and airports having commercial flights to poll bound states and keep strict vigil over the movement of cash through the aircrafts including private aircrafts leading to or taking off the poll bound states. In any cash exceeding Rs lo lakh is reported to the Income Tax department, they should take steps to take necessary action under the income tax laws.
The EC has created an Election Expenditure Monitoring cell within its establishment to monitor illegal money and other such bribes to voters during polls, few years back. The I-T department is also part of this cell. The Income Tax department kept close tabs on areas like Karol Bagh, Chandni Chowk, lakshmi Nagar and other commercial centres where large scale transactions take place on regular basis.
Delhi will vote for its 70 constituencies on February 7 and the counting of votes will take place on February 10.