Rich students come under I-T scanner

PUNE: The Income-Tax (I-T) department has sent a circular to educational institutions across Maharashtra seeking information about students who have paid fees of Rs 1 lakh and above per annum for the last four years. This is being done to monitor the sources of income of parents.
Deputy director-general of I-T (investigation) A.J. Khan told TOI on Saturday that the circular has been issued to all the educational institutions across the state, including colleges providing professional and graduate degrees and top schools.
"Many people do not show their correct expenses. This exercise will enable the department to check whether the expenditure incurred towards fee is being debited to the respective bank accounts or not," he said.
The circular demands details, including names and addresses of the students who have paid a total fees to Rs 1 lakh and above per annum towards tuition, lodging, boarding and all other heads charged by the institutes, he added.
The process of issuing the circular began about a fortnight ago and districts of Pune, Solapur, Ahmednagar, Satara, Sangli and Kolhapur have been covered so far.
"There are 81 educational institutions in Pune and we have issued the circular to each of them, apart from all the expensive schools," Khan said, adding that the remaining districts will be covered in the next 20 days.
Khan said that the educational institutions have already started responding to the circular and that severe action will be initiated against those which fail to do so.