The department had initiated a business intelligence project in February 2013 to identify PAN holders who have not filed I-T Return and about whom specific information is available in Annual Information Return (AIR), Central Information Branch (CIB) data and TDS/TCS Returns.

"The Income Tax department has now conducted the second round of data matching which has identified additional 21.75 lakh potential non-filers... The government urges all tax payers to disclose their true income and pay appropriate taxes," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

The department has already sent letters to the 50,000 potential non-filers in the first batch.

The information relating to the 21.75 lakh new non-filers has been made available on the 'Compliance Module' on the e-filing portal of the I-T Department, the statement added.

"In the first round of data matching, 12.19 lakh non- filers were identified. Letters have been sent in these cases by the Compliance Management Cell and Assessing officers seeking the response of the taxpayer," the ministry said.

The results of this initiative are very encouraging and 5,36,220 returns have been received from the target segment. Self assessment tax of Rs 1,017.87 crore, and advance tax of Rs 898.22 crore has also been paid by the target segment, it added.

The I-T department is spreading its net over people who conducted high-value transactions in 2010-11 and 2011-12.

The government is trying to meet its revenue collection target for this financial year. It plans to collect over Rs 6.68 lakh crore from direct taxes in this financial year, up 18 per cent from Rs 5.65 lakh crore in 2012-13.

Gross direct tax collections rose 12.33 per cent to Rs 4.81 lakh crore during the first nine months of 2013-14. Direct tax collections totalled Rs 4.29 lakh crore during the April-December period in 2012-13.

Net direct tax collections rose 12.53 per cent to Rs 4.15 lakh crore during the April-December period this year, compared with Rs 3.69 lakh crore in the year-ago period.

PTI