Lens on Rs 10 lakh crore high-value deposits after demonetisation

NEW DELHI: The middle class and rich seem to have made nearly two-thirds or over Rs 10 lakh crore of deposits in the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes+ during the 50-day demonetisation window, using over one crore bank accounts.

Although the scale of deposits has surprised even the tax department, it is making an allowance for institutional deposits — from cooperative banks and finance companies to businesses and government departments and other agencies — as it sieves through the data to spot suspected black money which was put into bank accounts. As a result, the initial round of scrutiny on "suspect" deposits is limited to 18 lakh accounts where over Rs 5 lakh were deposited and the stack added up to nearly Rs 4.2 lakh crore for which e-mails and SMSes are being sent out.

Sources told TOI that with data analytics company on board, it will do a more detailed splicing of bank account details as well as loan repayments that were made in cash. "It is not going to be a one-off exercise, we are going to analyse the huge pile of information that we have received over the next 18-24 months and catch whoever sought to misuse the system, while ensuring that the honest are not harassed," said a senior revenue department official.

Officials said the government realises that it has a challenging task at hand and is nudging people who have deposited large amount of cash to come forward and make use of the disclosure scheme for unaccounted funds. The numbers accessed by TOI are on the lines of those shared by finance minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech

The minister had said that deposits of Rs 2 lakh to Rs 80 lakh were made in about 1.09 crore accounts with an average deposit size of Rs 5.03 lakh.

Deposits of more than 80 lakh were made in 1.48 lakh accounts with average deposit size of Rs 3.31crore. The numbers were also meant to address criticism that the several poor people were displaced by an exercise that caused tremendous hardship and did not yield any significant amount of black money.