NEW DELHI, Oct 28(Agencies): The income tax department on Thursday conducted nationwide raids on premises of some contractors and firms as part of its probe to detect alleged financial irregularities in the organisation of the Commonwealth Games.

Official sources said the department is conducting raids at about 40 locations across the country, including in the national capital.

Sources said the I-T teams are raiding premises of various firms associated with the Games in Bangalore, Mumbai, Jharkhand and National Capital Region (NCR).

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.