IAS officer has 220 bank accounts, assets in millions

RAIPUR - B.L. Agrawal, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer in Chhattisgarh, has been found to have at least 220 bank accounts and assets worth millions of rupees, official sources said Saturday after the income tax department raided his residence here.

IT officials searched the residence of the state agriculture secretary as well as business establishments of his close relatives Thursday.

On Friday, the officials similarly raided his chartered account Sunil Agrawal’s house and came across documents suggesting that the IAS officer had amassed assets disproportionate to his known income.

The officer had at least 220 bank accounts, several of them opened on fake names and addresses, and a few in the names of his domestic helps.

Efforts by IANS to contact B.L. Agrawal failed. A man who answered his mobile telephone said that Agrawal was “busy in a meeting”.

Income tax department sources said they were analysing documents and papers they seized. Some documents suggest he might be involved in hawala transactions, the sources said.

Chhattisgarh’s Bharatiya Janata Party government is waiting a final report from the IT department about Agrawal’s assets to initiate action against him, official sources said.

Houses of government officials and businessmen in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh were raided Thursday and Friday to unearth unaccounted income.