New Delhi:
The Income Tax department on Thursday conducted raids on some contractors as part of its probe to detect alleged financial irregularities in the Commonwealth Games.
Official sources said teams of about 150 I-T sleuths are involved in the raids being carried out in different places in the national capital region.
They said the I-T probe will specifically look into the contracts awarded by the Games Organising Committee (OC) and the role of its officials and contractors including charges of bribing.
The I-T department officials are seizing documents related to all the tenders and contracts that were granted to various consortiums for the Games to detect possible evasion of taxes through over-invoicing and fudging of accounts.
The department had on October 19 carried out similar searches on four major consortiums, including those related to BJP member Sudhanshu Mittal, which had bagged contracts worth Rs 700 crore. Mittal is considered to be a close associate of former BJP President Rajnath Singh and late party leader Pramod Mahajan.
Sources said that the first consortium-- PICO international and Deepali Designs-- with Mittal as Director and his relatives as other stakeholders, had bagged contracts worth about Rs 230 crore.
The three other consortiums, including foreign entities, have been identified as G L Litmus and Meroform consortium, Comfort Net and Nussli India consortium and ESG Arena and D-Art furniture which bagged Games contracts worth Rs 500 crore.