Meanwhile, the Central Board of Direct Taxes chairman S S N Moorthy said that the government was in the process of setting up a Central Processing Centre for income tax returns in Bangalore within a year. “Now processing of IT returns takes a long time, in a centralized center, the whole process would be over in a short time,” Moorthy said, also speaking to the media later. Although he did not give details Moorthy also said that the department was actively involved in brining back black money from abroad.

In his speech earlier, speaking about the ‘sevottam’ centre, Moorthy said this was a project that would endeavour to change the prevalent unflattering image of law enforcement officers among taxpayers. A similar enterprise had been started in Chandigarh, Udaipur and Bombay, which has not been entirely successful. “The achievement at these centres has not been as desired. Therefore, we are running a project in Pune to sort out the technical glitches. Once it is cleared, we can expand it on a national level,” he said. The I-T department is one of the seven departments selected to implement this project, which will be an endeavour to improve service for the people. The office of the prime minister will monitor these projects.