Central Excise mop-up from city jumps 29% in Apr-Feb

Central Excise collection from the Mumbai region jumped 29 per cent to Rs 57,320 crore in the first 11 months of the outgoing financial year, from Rs 44,331 crore a year ago, a top department official said.

With this the department is close to achieving its annual collection target of Rs 62,100 crore.

"The revenue jumped 29 per cent during the first 11 months of the year due to higher duties on diesel and petrol," chief commissioner of Central Excise and head of Mumbai zone of the department, SC Varshney told PTI on Thursday.

Revenue collection from oil majors like BPCL and HPCL collectively stood at Rs 30,327 crore, up from Rs 20,998 crore a year ago.

Revenue payment by the cement major ACC went up by 26 per cent to Rs 1,038 crore in the reporting period from Rs 826 crore a year ago.

Similarly, revenue collection from the cigarette major Godfrey Phillips grew by 14 per cent to Rs 774 crore from Rs 678 crore a year ago.

The Mumbai region of the department is divided into two zones, Zone-I and Zone-II.

"Central Excise, Mumbai is gearing up to meet the revised revenue collection target of Rs 62,100 crore for the current fiscal, which includes Rs 26,100 crore from Zone-I and Rs 36,000 crore from Zone-II," he said.

According to Varshney, "we are concentrating more on detection of evasion, recovery of arrears, detailed scrutiny of returns and comprehensive audits of assessees for augmenting the revenue.