The Hindu Business Line : Excise duty collections up 7.8 pc in April-July

The Centre appears to be well on course to achieving the budgeted targets for indirect tax collections for 2006-07 if one goes by the latest data put out by the Government on Wednesday.

The Finance Ministry said today that excise duty collections have increased by 7.8 per cent during the first four months of the current fiscal to Rs 32,754 crore as against the collection level of Rs 30,387 crore recorded in the same period last year.

Robust growth

Customs duty collections continued to record robust growth at 35.2 per cent during April-July 2006 to Rs 26,703 crore (Rs 19,752 crore).

The 7.8 per cent growth rate in Central excise duty collections in April-July 2006 is higher than the 6.25 per cent growth budgeted for the current fiscal. The budget estimates for excise duty in 2006-07 has been pegged at Rs 1,19,000 crore. In the case of Customs duty, the budget estimate for 2006-07 has been pegged at Rs 77,066 crore, which represented a 20 per cent increase over the revised estimate of Rs 64,215 crore in 2005-06.

An official statement issued by the Finance Ministry here today also said that excise duty collections in July 2006 stood at Rs 9,193 crore, which represented an 7 per cent increase over the collection level of Rs 8,596 crore in July last year. Customs duty collections in July 2006 stood at Rs 7,065 crore, up by 38.6 per cent over the collection level of Rs 5,097 crore in July 2005.

Service tax

On the service tax front, the Centre's service tax collections in the first quarter of the current fiscal increased by 63.4 per cent to Rs 7,173 crore (Rs 4,390 crore in April-June 2005).

Meanwhile, the data available with the Finance Ministry also showed that indirect tax collections of the Centre increased by 23.35 per cent during April-June 2006 to Rs 50,372 crore (Rs 40,836 crore).

While excise duty collections grew by 8.12 per cent during April-June 2006 to Rs 23,560 crore (Rs 21,791 crore), Customs duty collections for the same period grew by 34 per cent to Rs 19,638 crore (Rs 14,655 crore).