(This story originally appeared in on Mar 26, 2017)

CHENNAI: More than 200 individuals and companies have deposited unaccounted money to the tune of Rs 600 crore in various bank accounts in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry after demonetisation was announced on November 8 last year.Most of the accounts in which such deposits were made are in rural Tamil Nadu, but some are in Chennai. Many such instances were reported in suburban areas and districts adjoining cities, said income tax sources.Officers told TOI that an individual in Tiruchengode in Namakkal district deposited Rs 246 crore in a branch of the Indian Overseas Bank."We were following him for more than 15 days after finding that he had deposited cash in a rural branch of the IOB.First, he tried to hide, but after a few days he agreed to join the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) and pay 45% of the total money as tax. As per PMGKY , 25% of the money will be retained with the government without any interest," a senior I-T investigation wing official told TOI. The cash deposited by the individual was in old demonetised currencies. There are several similar individuals and companies who have deposited cash in their accounts and accepted that they were unaccounted income."Most of them have joined the PMGKY scheme, which comes to an end on March 31. We hope the total unaccounted money will go up to Rs 1,000 crore before the month end. We are also warning people who are still not on board that the heat will increase from April 1," said the official.Soon after December 31, 2016, all banks in the country were told to send the list of account holders who had deposited cash above Rs 2.5 lakh after demonetisation. "All the lists were sent to our headquarters and with the help of a software we scrutinized it and dispatched them to our regional offices for follow-up action. After we received the TN and Puducherry list, it was divided between investigation wing and the assessment wing in the I-T. All deposits with PAN were taken over by the investigation wing," said the official. Across the country, the I-T department found Rs 85 lakh transactions to be suspicious."In TN and Pondy, we found 28,000 accounts to be suspicious and some of the accounts had deposits in cash to the tune of Rs 85 lakh or move. In the first instance, we send a mail to the account holder asking for details. Most of them have replied and some of the cases have been closed or they have joined the PMGKY scheme accepting that the cash was black money," he said. But in some cases, despite several reminders, the account holders have not replied. "We will wait till the end of the month and go behind them. If they accept on their own, the tax is only 45%. But if we find the money to be unaccounted, then the total tax will be around 83.5%," the official warned.