Blackmoney in polls: Income Tax department starts helpline for Delhi

NEW DELHI: The Income Tax department has floated a toll-free helpline number for general public to alert it about any suspicious movement of large sums of cash in the national capital during polls.

The investigation wing of the department has created a control room and complaint monitoring cell at its office here on the instructions of the Election Commission (EC) which wants to curb the use of blackmoney and illegal inducements in the poll process.

The toll-free number--1800110132-- will be monitored round-the-clock and will be supervised by a senior officer in the rank of Joint Director ( I-T), a senior official said.

The department has also prepared a team of chosen sleuths which will be monitoring blackmoney related instances with special emphasis on the measures deployed for the election period, a senior I-T officer said.

The EC has created an Election Expenditure Monitoring cell within its establishment to monitor illegal money and other such bribes to voters during the forthcoming Parliamentary polls in Delhi.

The I-T department is a part of this mechanism. Delhi has seven Lok Sabha seats and will vote on April 10.