Govt on course to meet FY16 revenue collection: CBEC official

Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) is hopeful of meeting the revenue collection target for the current fiscal as the first four months have recorded a 37 per cent rise, a top official said today.
The goverment had collected a total revenue of Rs 5.97 lakh crore in the fiscal 2014-15 and has fixed the target of Rs 6.44 lakh crore for the current financial year. Revenue is collected in form of indirect taxes from segments like central excise, service tax and customs.
"After putting together all three segments - central excise, service tax and customs - the collection by (Revenue) Department for the period April and July in the current fiscal is already up 37 per cent when compared to the same period last year. Hence, we are confident of achieving the target of Rs 6.44 lakh crore revenue by the fiscal-end," CBEC member V S Krishnan told PTI on the sidelines of a CII-organised event.

"Broadly what is happening is that the consumer segment is doing well. We have observed that most of the boost is coming from the consumption side," he said.
The preparations are going on in the full swing for the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which is likely to be rolled out across the country next year.
"The drafting of the GST law is going on at the moment and it will be ready by the first week of October and then go to the empowered committee. Afterwards the Centre will take a view on the final draft before it goes to public domain for discussion by the first week of November," he said.

Talking about the progress of GSTN, a software developed for building the technological backbone for the proposed tax regime, he said "we last year gave the contract to Infosys for development of GSTN under a five-year contract valued at Rs 1,380 crore. It will go live from October 1 as per the contract."

The GST roll-out will not only increase the tax collection, but also reduce the high cost of revenue collection being incurred by the department, Krishnan said.
"As of now, CBEC (which comes under Revenue Dept) is spending Rs 0.83 for collection of Rs 100. This will come down once GST is implemented."

The department continues to face staff shortage, the CBEC official said. "We have got merely 90,000 officials to collect the targeted revenue of Rs 6.44 lakh crore during the current fiscal. We are short by 40 per cent staff," he said.