Divya Delhi : Last year, the Income Tax Department carried out its biggest-ever search, seizing an astounding Rs 352 crore in cash. The operation, which targeted an Odisha distillery company in December 2023, required a labor-intensive 10-day process to count and secure the money that was taken.Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman acknowledged the work of the Income Tax team on August 21, 2024, the day of the major operation. At a ceremony in Bhubaneswar, the team—led by Additional Director Gurpreet Singh and Principal Director of Income Tax Investigation SK Jha—was given the "CBDT Certificate of Excellence." The occasion was a part of the festivities honoring the Income Tax department's 165th birthday. The ten-day operation produced the most cash confiscation made by any agency in the nation to date. Based on actionable intelligence, Singh, an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer from the 2010 batch, was instrumental in the raid on December 6 of last year that targeted multiple locations of a distillery company with operations in Odisha.The department used a sophisticated scanning machine to find hidden valuables during the search. 36 note-counting machines were employed to handle the enormous quantity of currency, and staff members from several banks helped with the counting procedure. From the operation, a total of Rs 351.8 crore was seized.Right now, the Income Tax Department is concentrating on obtaining unfulfilled tax demands. A total of Rs 43 lakh crore is to be collected in 5,000 cases, and officials are told to keep an eye on them.