New Delhi:  The Central Board of Direct Taxes has said that there has been a 20 per cent increase in processing of Refund returns for the current assessment year as compared to the same period in the previous year. "CPC processed 2.10 Cr refund returns for current AY2019-20 as on 28th November 2019, compared to 1.75 Cr AY2018-19 refund returns for the same period in FY2018-19, an increase of 20 per cent.", the Centralized Processing Center of the Income Tax Department said. It also stated that the total amount of Refunds issued in FY 2019-20 till 28th November 2019 was Rs 1,46,272.8 Cr as compared to Rs 1,19,164.7 Cr in same period previous year (increase of 22.7%). The CBDT has emphasized expeditious issue of refunds in this year demonstrating its commitment to faster and more efficient taxpayer service, the department said in a statement. It also stated that the Center has been at the forefront of the strategy to ensure the highest priority to the issue of refunds in an automated manner without any interface with the taxpayer. Sharing more statistics concerning an increase in the total number of returns processed, it said, "CPC processed 4.70 Cr. returns during FY2019-20 as on 28th November 2019, while for the same period in FY2018-19, 3.91 Cr. returns were processed, increase of 20 per cent". CBDT said that there was faster issuance of refunds as 43 Lakh more refunds were issued within 30 days in FY2019-20 compared to the previous year (increase of over 42 per cent. "In FY2019-20 of the 2.10 Cr refund ITRs processed, 68 per cent of refunds were issued within 30 days from the date of e-verification of ITR as compared to 57 per cent for the same period in financial year", it said.