I-T raids at establishments of govt contractor

Income Tax officials on Monday conducted raids at the residences and business establishment of a leading government contractor based here in the state capital of Chhattisgarh.

The raids were conducted simultaneously at seven places in Raipur and industrial town of Raigarh. Of these, six establishments are located in Raipur while one is in Raigarh where the contractor has a big house.

Separate teams of Income Tax department swooped the residences and business establishment of state’s leading government contractor Radheshyam Agrawal and his relatives. The operation started at about 6 am. The raids were also conducted at the houses and offices of Agrawal’s three sons Sunil, Sanjay and Bajrang.

The IT officials said that the investigation was going on and it would take another day or two to complete the process before establishing to unearth unaccounted money of the contractor. The officials have seized the relevant documents and records from Agrawal’s residences and offices.

Radheshyam, who is assisted by his three sons in the business, had bagged government works worth crores of rupees. It is estimated that the firm had bagged contracts to the tune of Rs 300 crore from the government. The firm had completed a few projects while work on others was in progress.

The group was primarily bagging contracts of Water Resources and Public Works departments. It had expertise in constructing small dams and annicuts. Recently the firm had got the contract to build annicuts in Janjgir Champa district where about three dozen power plants had been proposed. The state government was constructing annicuts on Mahanadi to ensure water supply for the industries coming up in the district.