Over 200 traders caught for cheating customers

224 traders, who were either allegedly manipulating the bills given to customers or not depositing the right amount of VAT to government, have been booked with the help of 'Bill Banvao Inam Pao' scheme, a senior official said.
Under the scheme, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had launched a mobile App--'DVAT'-- in January to encourage people to upload their bills of products they bought. 1 per cent of valid entries get prize equal to 5 times the bill amount through lucky draw.
"The records of the dealers whose bills were uploaded by people in January, 224 dealers were found manipulating records by deleting the bills or showing reduced amount of bills in their record.

"The VAT department has taken a very serious view of such manipulators and is prosecuting all these 224 dealers in the court of law," an official said.
The official said that these dealers may face rigorous imprisonment up to 6 months and fine. Scrutiny of bills received in February 2016 is under process and more such dealers are likely to be detected.
"Uploaded bills also helped in detecting 50 dealers, whose registrations were cancelled, doing business. From the 11 cancelled dealers whose

bills were uploaded in January 2016, more than Rs 22 lakh has been recovered as tax and penalty," the official said.

With the help of the bills uploaded by public, it has come to light that 50 traders are running business on cancelled registration number, the official said.
Also, the traders were collecting VAT from the customers but were not depositing the same amount to the government.
The Deputy Chief minister, who today presented cheques of Rs 4.5 lakh to 54 lucky draw winners of the scheme, said that by uploading the bills people have contributed immensely towards better tax collection and development of the city.
"The scheme has also been appreciated by a large section of traders who are doing business honestly as it has helped in creating a level playing field in the market," he said.