Mumbai sees 26 pc rise in Central Excise collection till October

Mumbai: Central Excise mop-up from Mumbai zone jumped 26 per cent to Rs 35,503 crore during the first seven months of this fiscal, a senior official said. The Budget has set a target of collecting Rs 53,300 crore for the full year from the Mumbai zone, which is divided into zones I and II.

"So far, we have collected Rs 35,503 crore from both the zones during the first seven months of the current financial year, up 26 per cent from Rs 26,314 crore in the year-ago period", Chief Commissioner of Central Excise and head of Mumbai zone, Subhash C Varshney told PTI here.

Giving a break-up of revenue collection from both the zones, Varshney said earnings from Zone I grew 10 per cent to Rs 15,424 crore, from Rs 14,040 crore, while that from Zone II jumped 64 per cent to Rs 20,079 crore during the reporting period, from Rs 12,274 crore a year ago.

Varshney said Reliance Industries saw its Central Excise payout rising 11 per cent, but declined to share the  actual figure. Oil major ONGC's tax outgo declined by 10 per cent from the year-ago period because the duty rate on crude oil has come down in the current fiscal to Rs 4,100 per tonne from Rs 4,500 a year ago.

Cement major ACC paid 34 per cent more during the reporting period. Similarly, Bharat Petroleum and HPCL also paid 63 per cent and 64 per cent more duty respectively.

In case of tyre major Ceat, the same was down 32 per cent but cigarette major Godfrey Phillips paid 32 per cent more duty this year. According to Varshney, revenue augmentation measures have been improved in the Mumbai zone.

"We have taken a number of measures for revenue augmentation. As a result of which we have recovered an additional Rs 40 crore on account of audit, Rs 216 crore on recoveries of confirmed demand and Rs 19 crore on account of recovery from defaults and Rs 9 crore from various anti-evasion drives during the reporting period,"