The Income-Tax Department is planning to launch a special drive to look into the real estate activity that has been attracting a lot of investments.

The skyrocketing prices in the real estate, particularly in and around the twin cities have attracted the attention of the Department.

"We are gathering information on this issue. The Department is quite busy till the month-end with time-barred scrutiny assessment. Once our staff is free, we will concentrate on this issue," said Mr D.V. Dharmik, Chief Commissioner of IT (Hyderabad-I), Andhra Pradesh.

The Department will form special teams in this regard.

Speaking to newspersons on Thursday, he said that the Department was confident of surpassing the target of Rs 8,479 crore and touch the Rs 9,000-crore mark by the end of the fiscal.

The collections up to November 2006 already form 54 per cent of the current year's target.

The Department has registered collections to the tune of Rs 4,610.28 crore at the end of November against Rs 3,086.18 crore for the same period last year, showing an increase of 49 per cent.

"This is far higher than the national increase (for the comparable period) of 41.50 per cent."

Collections from the corporate sector continued to have a bigger share at Rs 2,337.64 crore (Rs 1,631 crore), showing a growth of 43 per cent.

Personal income-tax contributed Rs 2,144 crore (Rs 1,405 crore), showing an increase of 53 per cent.

The Department received 10,98,855 returns up to November (10,16,567).

Margadarsi issue

To a question, he said that the Department had been taking into consideration news from various sources with regard to the issues related to Margadarsi Financiers, a company promoted by Mr Ramoji Rao, Chairman of the Eenadu Group.