Chandigarh, Dec 29 (IANS) Authorities in Punjab have recovered over Rs.5 crore (Rs.50 million) of unaccounted money in cash from various places in election-bound Punjab this week, a senior election official said here Thursday.

The money has been recovered during stepped up checking in the run up to the Jan 30 elections to the 117-member Punjab assembly.

Punjab chief electoral officer (CEO) Kusumjit Sidhu said that after the model code of conduct came into force Dec 24, unaccounted money worth Rs.5 crore has been seized so far.

‘Rs.47 lakh has been seized today (Thursday) itself (in Patiala district),’ she said.

The recent seizures were made from Mohali, Ludhiana, Patiala, Khanna, Jagraon, Barnala, Rajpura and Hoshiarpur.

In an incident in Guru Harsahai area, an amount of Rs.23 lakh was returned to a farmer after verifying the authenticity of the documents at the time of checking.

Sidhu said that all the seizures were being video graphed.