The Financial Express 01.12.2010
Punjab govt, I-T dept cross swords over GMADA raidsThe Punjab government and the income tax authorities are heading for a tiff in view of the recent raids at the premises of Greater Mohali Area Development Authority and the chief minister himself taking up the issue with the Union finance minister.
The sleuths of the income tax department had swarmed the premises of Greater Mohali Urban Development Authority (GMADA) last week and detected that the authority had failed to deposit income tax on receipts exceeding Rs 150 crore. The receipts concerned interest income on deposits with banks and financial institutions of the earnest money received from the much hyped Aerocity project. The GMADA plots scheme had received overwhelming response and it garnered over Rs 9,000 crore public money by way of earnest money.
Sources told FE here that the GMADA has handed over a cheque of Rs 15 crore to the income tax department accepting an income…
The GMADA officials took up the matter with the chief minister Parkash Singh Badal who has written a letter to Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. The tone and tenor of the letter and the near unanimity among I-T officials against such a letter indicate that a tiff was brewing between the Punjab government and the income tax department.
“Such extreme step of surveys and raids on a statutory authority of the state government had created an unsavoury situation impacting the Centre-state relations”, says the chief minister’s letter to Union finance minister.
Unaffected, the income tax officials have found that the GMADA had deposited Rs 180 crore for the acquisition of land for…
According to a senior I-T official, as per the documents and evidences obtained during the survey operation, the GMADA had paid Rs 15 crore for acquiring land in 2007-08 and Rs 165 crore in 2008-09.
In all, 306 acre was acquired by Punjab government at the rate of Rs 1.5 crore per acre. Of the total amount of Rs 460 crore, Rs 180 crore was borne by GMADA, Rs 220 crore by PUDA and Rs 60 crore by the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA)….
