Unaccounted cash worth Rs 4.7 lakh crore deposited post demonetisation

New Delhi: The government on Thursday revealed that after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes on November 8, 2016, unaccounted cash worth Rs 4.7 lakh crore was deposited in banks by 18 lakh people across the country.

The government further claimed that they have already sent queries via text messages and emails to 13 lakh of the 18 lakh people till date.

"Unaccounted cash worth Rs 4.7 lakh crore was deposited by 18 lakh people. Queries have already been sent to 13 lakh through SMS and email," Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chairman Sushil Chandra said.

The data collected in the first phase of government's 'Operation Clean Money', which was launched earlier this week, claimed that deposits worth lakhs of crores in scrapped currency notes were made after demonetisation in various bank accounts which are being scruitnised by the Income Tax officials, said the senior official.

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"These 18 lakh cases even by primary data analytics we found to be glaring because their deposits and income size are simply not matching. Number of deposits made in these 18 lakh deposits is not a small number...its in lakhs of crores," said Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, adding that within next 10 days, notices will be sent to lakhs of taxpayers identified by the IT department seeking explanation over the same.

"This is only the first phase of data that we have put in the domain of people's e-filing account. More set of data is set to come in phases 2, 3 and 4," he said.

"We would expect people will reply within 10 days. If they do not reply within 10 days, we will have to do further something about them. We had to announce it as soon as possible because this is a matter that cannot wait," he added.

In the initial phase of Operation Clean Money, the officials are doing e-verification of large cash deposits which were made during the period of November 9 to December 30, 2016.