LUDHIANA: When the Congress party had mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remark that selling ‘pakodas’ too was a form of self-employment, little did it know that a ‘pakora’ seller in Ludhiana would not only prove the PM right, but far exceed his expectations.
On Friday morning, Panna Singh pakorewala surrendered Rs 60 lakh to the Income Tax department, after a day-long survey conducted on Thursday. The action was taken by the Income Tax department on two outlets of this ‘pakorewala’ — one at Gill Road, and another at Model Town — after the former got specific inputs that the shop owner was suppressing his actual income.
During the survey — conducted under instructions from principal commissioner DS Chaudhary — teams of the I-T department not only scrutinized the financial records of the enterprise, but also checked its daily sale by keeping an officer stationed at the cash counter of both the outlets for the entire day on Thursday. Based on the daily sales of the outlets, the department calculated the approximate annual tax liability of the enterprise, and verified it with its income tax returns, and the tax deposited by them.
Though department officials remained tight-lipped about the action’s outcome, TOI managed to speak to Dev Raj, the owner of the ‘pakora’ shops, who confirmed he had surrendered Rs60 lakh to the department as his undisclosed income.
Established in 1952, Late Panna Singh set up a small ‘pakora’ shop at Gill Road, which became a household name years later, not only in Punjab but other states as well, for its special Paneer Pakora and Dahi Bhalla. His admirers include people from all walks of life — politicians, bureaucrats, police officials, and renowned businessmen.
Meanwhile, according to sources, in another action taken on Thursday by the department on a store in Miller Ganj dealing in dry fruits, the store surrendered Rs1 crore as its undisclosed income.