The Income Tax department will process more than 40 lakh refund cases before April this year.

The department has streamlined the process as the statutory time limit to process the return and issue refund in the financial year 2009-10 is March 31 and almost 49 lakh such cases worth crores of rupees are pending with the department.

However, a number of such refunds have been processed already.

"The department is hopeful of dispatching all these returns by March this year. Cases where the addresses are recorded incorrect, Permanent Account Number ( PAN )) is wrong and incorrect particulars of bank accounts result in backlogs," a senior I-T officer said.

Many refunds will be sent back to the taxpayers through the Refund Banker Scheme, which is operational in a number of cities with the help of State Bank of India (SBI), they said.

An I-T officer said the Finance Ministry has asked the Central Board of Direct Taxes ( CBDT )) to expedite the process and the Board has subsequently instructed the department to process the refunds on a "prompt" basis.