You would think that roadside sellers like paanwalas, chaatwalas, and sabziwalas suffer from financial distress. While many of them do, those living in Kanpur have a different story to tell.
According to a report by News18, as many as 256 small shopkeepers selling roadside snacks and other eatables are found to have been crorepatis! Even several rag-pickers are found to possess 3 cars.
This discovery was made by the Income Tax Department of Kanpur. One of the reasons why these people have such kind of money is because they have not paid their taxes for a long time. Not a single rupee was spent outside their GST registration.
According to DNA, these people have bought properties worth Rs 375 crore in the past 4 years. These properties are located in areas like Swaroop Nagar, Aryanagar, Hulaganj, Birhana Road, Gumti, and Pirod.
Besides properties, these roadside sellers also own agricultural lands in places like Bithoor, Naramau, Kanpur Nagar, Mandhana, Kakwan, Bilhaur, Sarsaul, and Farukhabad. A total of 650 bighas of land have been bought by them.
Paanwalas in Aryanagar, Swaroop Nagar, and Birhana Road have acquired properties worth 5 crores during the lockdown, a time when several other people were suffering from dire monetary problems.
That’s not all. 2 sanitation workers from Beconganj and 1 from Lalbangla have built properties worth more than 10 crores in the last 2 years.
These people had mostly named their properties after their brothers, sisters, sisters-in-law, uncles. However, they made the mistake of putting their PAN number in government documents, with the help of which the IT department was able to catch them.
What do you think of this incident? Tell us!