Excise duty collections recovered from a decline in April to post a healthy 4.4 per cent growth in May, according to data released by the finance ministry here today. Excise duty collections had fallen to Rs 6,410 crore in April from Rs 6,673 crore in the same month last year.
However, the growth in excise duty collections in May fell short of the target of 8.8 per cent growth for the whole fiscal. Excise duty collections for the first two months of this fiscal grew 0.9 per cent at Rs 15,993 crore, compared with Rs 15,848 crore for the same period last year.
Customs duty collections registered a growth of 25.1 per cent for the two months at Rs 19,223 crore, compared with Rs 15,848 crore during the same period last year. Customs duty collections grew 25.2 per cent to Rs 10,205 crore in May.
Service tax collections, data for which are available only for April, grew by a whopping 40 per cent to Rs 6,093 crore. Customs duty and service tax collections are targeted to grow at 14.4 per cent and 26.1 per cent during the current fiscal, respectively.
Despite a cut in Customs duty on various items to tame the spiralling inflation rate, the government is hopeful of meeting the collection target for the fiscal. The government has said that it would incur a revenue loss of Rs 22,660 crore in 2008-09 due to the duty cuts on petroleum products.
