IT Department Operation clean money begins : Binay K. Jha

Ludhiana : The Income Tax Department held an awareness drive under operation clean money in the city today. A press conference was held today at Income Tax Office, Grand Walk, Ludhiana. Mr. Binay K Jha, Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Ludhiana, while addressing the media said the department covered 638 private, convent and government schools today.

This drive was as part of the ‘’Operation Clean Money’’ programme of Government, the Income Tax Department held a tax awareness drive wherein the message of “Swachh Bharat, Swachh Dhan” was conveyed to the school children.  During this drive, each school was visited by one of the officers/officials/tax professionals/taxpayers/families of employees and retired employees.  The entire Department, right from the Tax Assistants to the level of  Chief Commissioner of Income Tax was involved in this drive. To make the children aware of the role and importance of income tax in nation building would help disseminate the message of the need for compliance and  tax payment in their families, neighborhood and society. This is a step to inculcate  tax awareness, the importance of tax in the development of the and encourage voluntary tax compliance nation, encourage tax-culture,  encourage voluntary tax compliance and establish communication with the citizens, as well as to provide better taxpayer service by taxpayers of Ludhiana Region.

The following activities were conducted at the schools:

Awareness regarding Income tax was given to school students.Pledge of “Swachh Bharat, Swachh Dhan” was administered to the students, staff and employees of the Schools.A tax-tree called the “Apnakar tree” was planted in each school and adopted by them, for imbibing the value and role of taxes in national development, and the need for becoming diligent taxpayers.The students could give their suggestions feedback on apnakar.com which is a one stop platform for obtaining services  relating to income tax

This drive covered around 4 lakhs school students.   This initiative is first ever tax awareness outreach to school students on such a large scale, and perhaps the ‘’largest single direct outreach about Income Tax in India, and in the world’’. This exercise may qualify to be included in the World-Records, Guinness Record, Limca-Records and others.  The photographs of this program were uploaded on face book page ‘TAX TREE LUDHIANA’ where each person conducting awareness drive “checked in” his status.

The students were informed that a link called “Student’s Corner” on the www.apnakar.com website has been made available where they can communicate with the Department, upload pictures of the growing “APNAKAR TREE”, share their experiences about spreading tax awareness in their families and society, share success stories and suggestions. They were informed that “Tax Champions” would be selected and recognized and awarded from among these students and schools. This was also a most digitalized campaign as everything was done using geo-tagging, Whatsapp and facebook.

Sh. Jha thanked all the participating schools and officers/officials/tax professionals/taxpayers/families of employees and retired employees for making this drive a huge success. This was attended by Ms. R. Bhama, PCIT, Sh. Jagtar Singh PCIT, Rohit Mehra Add. Commissioner, Manav Bansal Joint Commissoner, Prem Malik, Deputy Commissoner and all officials of IT department are present.