President Pranab Mukherjee today said the purse of revenue collection should be maintained with utmost care as it is utilised for the implementation of important development schemes.
While speaking to a batch of trainee officers of the Indian Revenue Service (IRS), who called on him at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here, Mukherjee said the role of civil servants has transformed from being regulators and administrators to being facilitators.
The President said the duty of tax collection is a sovereign function of the state and that the purse of revenue collection has to be maintained with utmost care because it governs the implementation of all schemes of development and welfare.
Mukherjee said he had been closely seeing the working of the Income Tax department initially as the Minister of State from 1973-1977 and then a Finance Minister from 1982-84 and then again from 2009-2012.
The Union Budget presented by the first Finance Minister Shanmugam Chetty, he said, involved a total revenue collection of Rs 171.15 crore.
"Over the years, Indian economy has expanded enormously and gathered momentum. Income Tax in India forms a major part of total tax revenue in India. The direct taxes that contributed 36 per cent of overall tax collection of India in 2000-01 formed 50 per cent tax revenue in 2015-16," he said.
Wishing the officers to do well in the future, Mukherjee said no other service thrusts such huge responsibility on young shoulders as the civil services.
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