Cycle industry fumes as I-T raids continue in Ludhiana

LUDHIANA: The income tax raids on several bicycle companies in the city continued on Friday as well and different teams of the department stayed put inside the factories of some of the raided companies located in Industrial Estate, Focal Point Phase 4, Kanganwal, Dhandari Kalan etc.
Though investigation wing of the income tax department is still silent over why the raids were conducted and whether or not anything incriminating pointing towards tax evasion by any of the firms has been recovered till now.
Sources, however, informed that the officials of the department were still going through the books of accounts, documents, banking transactions, property papers etc and were even physically checking the stocks of these firms to detect any discrepancies.
Meanwhile I-T raids are drawing huge resentment from industrialists, especially those connected to bicycle industry are feeling that this action was uncalled for.
A prominent cycle industrialist, who wished to be anonymous, said, “These raids have sent a big shockwave amongst the cycle industry as the raided firms include some of the very reputed medium scale enterprises which only do genuine business dealings while some raided firms do not have that type of big business that raids should have been conducted on them. Anyone in our industry who comes to know about the names of the raided companies is not ready to believe that these companies could indulge in tax evasion or any other malpractice”
Another businessman said, “On one hand, industry has just started getting out of recession after such a long time and started getting the lost business back but on the other hand, such big I-T actions have created fear amongst the businessman. Ever since yesterday, several factories and shops dealing with the raided firms or located near to them have suspended their operations”
Meanwhile different theories on why the action was taken against so many firms of same industry segment are doing rounds in the city, one of the rumour which is doing rounds claims that the I-T action has been taken on the complaint of bigger companies who were threatened by the increasing competition from these medium and small-scale companies.
Another rumour says that these firms were probably raided as they participate in government tenders of purchase of bicycle, however upon confirmation from different sources it emerged that only two of the firms are into the tender business.