Unaccounted sums invested in green energy in MP, suspects I-T dept

Large sums of unaccounted money have been diverted to set up wind and solar power plants in Madhya Pradesh, documents seized during income tax searches and surveys held this year in Indore region have revealed.

Large sums of unaccounted money have been diverted to set up wind and solar power plants in Madhya Pradesh, documents seized during income tax searches and surveys held this year in Indore region have revealed.

In some cases investors have taken bank loan at rate of 12% to 13% though green energy sells for Rs 5 to Rs 7 per unit. (Representative image)

Income tax department and its investigation wing which carried out searches and surveys at premises of people associated with real estate, share market, food product manufacturing, media, civic infrastructure development, and government contracts this year suspect that investments these people made in green energy had nothing to do with their corporate social responsibility.

“They invested in green energy specially in wind mills, solar energy plants and done over invoicing (increase fraudulently the price of goods or service rendered). This is what we realised as we scrutinised the seized documents. Further scrutiny is still on,” a department official said wishing anonymity.

What has also surfaced during scrutiny of seized documents is that in some cases investors have taken bank loan at rate of 12% to 13% though green energy sells for Rs 5 to Rs 7 per unit.

“Add to this, the operation and maintenance cost required to run energy plants. Investors will find it financially unviable to run them after five years as prices of green energy may fall. Yet, they have invested in green energy. It appears that they did not do it out of their corporate social responsibility. Investigations are on to know actual reasons behind their investment in green energy sector,” official said.

Meanwhile, the sale details collected by investigation wing from petrol pumps, dealers of high end luxury products like automobiles, watches after centre announced demonitisation of high currency notes on November 8 indicate that many bills issued by dealers are in back date.

“People purchased luxury items after November 8 but bills show they purchased before. Scrutiny is on in these cases,” investigation wing sources said.