The Hindu Business Line : Customs duty collections rise 35% in April-Feb

New Delhi March 10 The country's customs duty revenues continue to be buoyant, with collections for the April-February 2007 period recording a 35.27 per cent increase to Rs 77,693 crore against Rs 57,434 crore in the same period previous year.

The Government has now achieved the Budget estimate of Rs 77,066 crore for customs duty collections in 2006-07. It had recently revised the customs duty collections target for 2006-07 to Rs 81,800 crore, which is expected to be achieved comfortably going by the current trend in collections.

However, excise duty collections continue to be a "laggard" and a "worrisome tax" for the Government. In April-February this fiscal, excise duty collections grew by 5.8 per cent to Rs 1,01,571 crore against Rs 96,029 crore in the same period previous year.

Going by the current trend in excise duty collections, it may be difficult for the Government to achieve the revised estimate of Rs 1,17,266 crore for 2006-07.

The Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, had in the recent Budget lowered the excise duty collection target from Rs 1,19,000 crore to Rs 1,17,266 crore. He has also said that the Government would pay more attention to excise duty in 2007-08.

The Government has already taken a slew of measures to improve excise duty collections. From January 1 this year, certain deterrent provisions have been put in place against leakage of revenues.

Moreover, the Government has now made it mandatory for assessees making excise duty payment of over Rs 50 lakh in a year to do so only through the electronic mode with effect from April 1.

A new electronic accounting system (EASIEST) has also been launched as an e-governance initiative for excise duty and service tax.

While customs duty collections stood at Rs 6,821 crore (Rs 4,666 crore) in February 2007, excise duty collections stood at Rs 10,896 crore (Rs 10,501 crore).

Official data released by the Government showed service tax collections of the Centre going up by 64.42 per cent to Rs 28,877 crore during April-January 2007 against Rs 17,563 crore in the same period previous year.