Indirect tax mop up at 89% of Budget estimates

The government may miss the indirect tax collections target for the current fiscal by a whisker, as it has collected only 89% of the Budget estimates totalling Rs 3.48 lakh crore till February end.

The government had fixed an indirect tax collections target of Rs 3,92,908 crore for the current fiscal.

According to the latest figures, indirect tax collections jumped 14.6% in the April-February period to Rs 3,48,702 crore.

Total collection of indirect taxes -- customs, central excise and service -- was Rs 3.04 lakh crore in the same period of the previous fiscal.

The service tax collections during the period this fiscal continued to be strong with 37% growth to Rs 82,562 crore.

The growth in excise collections is also positive. The excise collections jumped 6.2% to Rs 1.29 lakh crore.

The total mop up from customs duty rose 12% to Rs 1.36 lakh crore during the 10-month period.

There have been concerns over the country's economic growth prospects in the wake of high cost of credit coupled with uncertain economic global scenario.

As per official estimates, the economy is expected to grow at 6.9% in the current fiscal, lower from 8.4% in the previous year.

Last month at the time of releasing the indirect tax collections estimates till January, the Finance Ministry had said that it was confident of achieving the Budget target.