The Congress party is miffed after Ratna Prabha, the chief secretary of Government of Karnataka, received a notice from the director general of income tax, which said that five government departments in Karnataka made payments in relation to ‘election purposes’ from January to March, according to a report in The Economic Times.
The notice, dated April 6, issued to Prabha, read, “Intelligence received by us indicates that several big payments have been made to contractors of some departments of the state government of Karnataka in the last quarter of the financial year 2017-18 which are meant to be used for election purposes.”
The communique said that the involved departments were animal husbandry, revenue, energy, water resources and public works. The I-T department asked for the details of the payments exceeding Rs 25 lakh to contractors in the period of January-March, along with amounts of tax deducted. The details on payments made to the same contractors in the year 2016-17 also need to be given to the department.
BJP state spokesperson S Suresh Kumar told ET, “Within three months, Rs 30,000 crore has been paid through these five departments.”
