IT dept recovers Rs 150 cr cash after raids on distillery group, others

Bhubaneswar: The Income Tax department on Thursday recovered more than Rs 150 crore cash after it carried out searches on an Odisha-based distillery group and linked entities on charges of alleged tax evasion, official sources said. The raids were launched on Wednesday and the department officials have deployed counting machines to ascertain the exact amount of cash that appears to be ‘’unaccounted’’, they said.

The sources identified the main business group under search as Boudh Distillery even as the tax officials also raided some linked entities. An email query sent by a news agency to the company in this context did not elicit a response.

Cash worth more than Rs 150 crore has been recovered and the searches are continuing, according to the sources. It was not clear if the cash was recovered from one or multiple locations.

The searches are being undertaken in Bhubaneswar, Bolangir and Sambalpur apart from Ranchi and Kolkata, the sources said.