New Delhi, Mar 19 (IANS): During the course of election surveillance being carried out for the ensuing Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, the Income Tax Department on March 16 conducted search actions on five premises in Chennai.

A Finance Ministry release said that these five premises belong to five entities, who, in addition to their regular business, are also acting as Cash Handlers. As a result of the search action, the income tax officials seized cash of Rs 5.32 crore.

In a separate development, the Income Tax Department, carried out search and seizure operations on March 17 on a business group engaged in yarn trading and supply of PPE kits, bags and Baby care kits to various State Governments. The searches were conducted in eight premises at Tirupur, Dharapuram and Chennai.

The department said that the searches revealed that the group is engaged in the practice of suppressing profit by inflating purchases and other expenses. The unaccounted income so generated is utilized for making investments in land and expansion of business.

In this case the search resulted in seizure of unaccounted cash of Rs 11.50 crore and total unaccounted income detected so far is Rs.80 crore. Further investigations are in progress, the department said.

Seizure of large unaccounted cash will reduce the possibility of its utilisation for electoral purposes and will aid the objective of free and fair poll in the State of Tamil Nadu, the Finance Ministry statement said.

Income Tax department has stepped up its monitoring and is closely watching the cash movement during the ensuing Assembly elections.