The Income Tax Department has written to another 35,000 people this week, asking them to file returns and pay dues.

"As part of a massive exercise to identify high risk non-filers of income tax returns and ask them to file returns and pay taxes thereon, the Income Tax Department has sent letters to another batch of 35,000 non-filers this week," the Finance Ministry said in a statement Friday.

With this, the department has issued letters in 2.45 lakh cases. It has identified 12 lakh people who do not file returns and is taking follow-up action on them.

"As a result of this exercise, 3,44,365 returns have been received from the target segment. Such persons have also paid self assessment tax amounting to Rs 577 crore and advance tax of Rs 408 crore," it said.

The department now proposes to extend this exercise to persons who have conducted high-value transactions during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 fiscal years, it added.

The Finance Ministry is also developing a dedicated module on the e-filing portal which will give individual taxpayers details of returns not filed, ITR-V not submitted and demand not paid, among others, as a step towards greater transparency.

The government plans to collect over Rs 6.68 lakh crore from direct taxes in the current fiscal, up from Rs 5.65 lakh crore in the previous fiscal.