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The Finance Ministry has overhauled its Income Tax intelligence wing in order to speed up investigation of high value cases of Rs 10 lakhs and above and stop new methods of tax evasion.

Commissioners of Income Tax (CITs) of the Central Information Branch (CIB) will now report to the intelligence wing headquartered in the national capital.

The CIB and the intelligence wing, which were till now performing support role for the conduct of search and survey operations for the investigation arm of the department, will henceforth independently probe cases of tax evasion, official sources said.

The CIB is the nodal office in the department to gather all documents pertaining to transactions in relation to which Permanent Account Number (PAN) or General Index Register Number are given during sale and purchase of property and monetary deposits.

"The re-structuring of the Central Information Branch will ensure current, constant and consolidated reporting and delivery of information on transactions, including high value financial ones which are around Rs 10 lakhs or more," sources said.

NACIL was formed after the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines in 2007 and has been incurring losses every year. It had a loss of around Rs 5,500 crore in the last fiscal and Rs 2,226 crore in 2007-08.

As per norms, BRPSE take up the matter of checking the sickness a central public sector on its own or with the reference of administrative ministry if the firm incurred loss for two consecutive years.

Also, BRPSE can declare a central public sector unit sick if a CPSE had accumulated losses in any financial year equal to 50 per cent or more of its net average worth during four years immediately preceding the year when the loss is reported.

Sengupta had earlier said that when BRPSE wrote to Air India seeking to study its balance sheet, both the Prime Ministers's Office and the Finance Ministry were informed.