The survey carried out by sleuths of the Income Tax Department on the Greater Mohali Urban Development Authority (GMADA) on Thursday has revealed that the GMADA has failed to deposit timely advance tax instalments on receipts exceeding Rs 150 crore on account of interest income on deposits with banks and financial institutions of the earnest money received from the Aerocity project. The survey was carried out under the supervision of Pawan Parmar, Income Tax Commissioner IT-II, Chandigarh.
On account of the preliminary discussions, a cheque of Rs 15 crore has been handed over to the Income Tax Department by the GMADA thereby accepting an income from interest at Rs. 45 crore initially. According to sources in the Income Tax Department, it has also come to notice that “there is irregularity in proper demarcation of revenue expenditure and capital expenditure and no regular system of accounting is being followed by the authority. Several hundred crores of rupees deposited for acquisition of land for the Airport Authority of India in different financial years have not been reflected under the correct heads in their accounts”. This has resulted in gross understatement of income and booking of fictitious losses, as per the IT Department. The documents and evidences obtained during the survey action are being scrutinized for necessary action.
The team, comprising around ten officials, had taken stock of the finances, accounts, allotments and development works initiated by the GMADA since its inception in August 2006. Besides meeting GMADA senior functionaries, the IT sleuths had also gone to the offices of GMADA (Finance and Accounts) Rajesh Sodhi, Advisor Projects KK Kaul, ACA (Headquarter) Balwinder Singh Multani and Chief Engineer Rajiv Moudgil.
