Industry recovers as excise up 22.7% in August

In a clear sign of the strength of the industrial comeback, excise duty collection for August registered a 22.7 per cent increase over last month, raising the government's hope of meeting the indirect tax mop-up target for the year.     

"The industry is clearly showing signs of revival. Excise collection in August is up 22.7 per cent compared to last month... We are hopeful of meeting the target," Chairman of Central Board of Excise and Customs V Sridhar told reporters here.     

The growth in excise figures is led by improvement in sectors like sugar that showed an increase of about 16 per cent, petroleum products that grew by about 4 to 5 per cent and cigarettes, Sridhar added on the sidelines of a CII seminar.     

The indirect tax collection target of the government is set at about Rs 2.7 lakh crore for 2009-10.

Further, customs duty also slightly improved from the negative of over 30 per cent in July to a minus 28 per cent in August, he said.

Among the three components of indirect tax — customs, excise and service tax — service tax has performed the best, he pointed out.     

"Service tax has done the best among the three (central excise, customs and service tax). There is a negative 1.3 per cent growth in service tax in August," Sridhar added.     

The tax cuts made by the government, to help industries tide over the slowdown, had hit the exchequer both in terms of direct and indirect taxes, while customs, excise and service tax witnessed negative growth in the past four months.     

The government's indirect tax kitty during the first four months of this fiscal, April-July was down 28 per cent at about 63,623 crore compared to Rs 88,395 crore last year same period.     

Customs, among the indirect tax components had witnessed the maximum decline of about 36 per cent at Rs 24,324 crore in the April-July period.