I-T raid on Odisha distilleries: Counting continues for 4th day; 75% cash still to be counted

Sundargarh: The Income Tax (IT) sleuths continued the raids on the premises of distilleries for the fourth day in Sundargarh district.

A team of IT officials from Bhubaneswar and outside states conducted searches at liquor trader Raj Kishore Jaiswal’s residence reportedly due to his link with Congress’ Jharkhand Rajya Sabha MP Dheeraj Sahu.

Raj Kishore Jayaswal, known as the king of the liquor trade in Sundargarh district as well as some districts of neighboring Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, came under the scanner of the IT Department for allegedly evading income tax.

The raids on his house have been underway since December 6 morning.

Although, the IT officials did not confirm the exact amount of cash uncovered during the searches, a huge cache of cash was stated to be unearthed from the businessman’s house as the seized amount was transported in two big trucks to banks for counting.

Earlier, the raids were carried out on liquor manufacturing units belonging to two liquor traders namely Raj Kishore Sahoo and Debraj Sahoo simultaneously at various places in Bhubaneswar, Sundargarh, Rayagada, Boudh and Titilagarh, 2 places in Jharkhand and 2 places in Kolkata.

The IT officials unearthed huge cash approximately Rs 220 crore during raids at multiple places. Total 176 bags containing the seized notes were sent to banks to know exact figure of unaccounted money.

So far, the counting of notes up to an amount of Rs 46 Crore completed in Balangir district, of which Rs 11 Crore was counted in Titilagarh.

Sources said that 136 bags of notes are yet to be counted. Total 25 machines were engaged for cash counting. Since the number of notes is high, the machines stopped working. The bankers sought more machines from outside districts for the counting.