Balangir(Odisha): A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured people that "money looted from the public will be returned", the Income Tax (I-T) Department on Saturday intensified its crackdown on a liquor distillery group in Odisha. Balangir SBI Regional Manager informed that Rs 46 crore cash had been counted on the second day. The bank had received a total of 176 bags filled with cash, he added.
After recovering around Rs 225 crore till Friday, the I-T sleuths seized another 20 bagloads of cash from the house of a countrymade liquor manufacturer in the Sudapara area of Balangir district on Saturday. An official said that the amount of money recovered from Sudapara is being counted and it is expected to be over Rs 50 crore.
The I-T team on Friday had taken 156 cash-loaded bags to the SBI main branch at Balangir for counting. I-T DG Sanjay Bahadur, who has been camping in Bhubaneswar for the last three days, however, refused to divulge details on the ongoing raids.
"Our people are working on it," he told reporters on Saturday. Sources said that while 150 officials were taking part in raids on the liquor distillery group, the I-T department has also engaged another 20 officials from Hyderabad for verification of digital documents recovered from different places during the raids.
Sources said that the seized money was being counted at two SBI branches at Sambalpur and Balangir. They further said that the counting of the cash, in Rs 500, Rs 200 and Rs 100 denominations, has become a Herculean task and machines have developed glitches due to the heavy load. They said that the note-counting machines have also been brought from various banks.
After conducting raids on manufacturing units and premises of stakeholders associated with Baldeo Sahu and Group of Companies, one of the biggest countrymade liquor manufacturers in western Odisha, the agency is now targeting offices and residences of all the persons linked to this group, sources said.
The I-T raids started from Boudh Distillery Private Limited (BDPL), a subsidiary of Baldeo Sahu Infra Private Limited, they said, adding that a group was allegedly linked to a Congress MP from Jharkhand. The raids were conducted in Sambalpur, Rourkela, Bolangir, Sundargarh and Bhubaneswar. (With PTI Inputs)
Also read: On Day 3 of I-T raids, Rs 220 crore seized; PM says money looted from public to be returned
