"The 151 officer trainees hail from 20 states including north-East and speak 16 different mother tongues. Uttar Pradesh tops the list among the states for sending highest number of 33 officer trainees," Director General of NADT, G G Shukla, told reporters, today.

He said Tamil Nadu with 18, Rajathan 17 and Maharashtra 15 are among other states with higher number of trainee officers. Forty-nine per cent of them are from rural background and and 40 per cent of them are from middle income group (up to Rs five lakh) and even five per cent were from higher income slab of above 20 lakh, Shukla said.

Officer trainees have varied educational qualifications with 37 of them having Engineering and Technology background, 12 doctors and 22 Science graduates and two of them hold doctorate in Philosophy.

During mid training, they would be sent to Holland, South Africa and Malaysia for familiarising with their Tax system.

The course would be inaugurated by Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), Vinod Rai, Padma Vibhushan, Dr G Madhavan Nair, Professor and former Chairman of ISTO and Member CBDT Prakash Chandra will be guests of honours, Shukla said. N Jayasankar will be course director.