Excise revenue up 79% to Rs1.71 lakh cr in H1
The government's collection from levy of excise duty on petroleum products has risen 33 per cent in the first six months of the current fiscal when compared with last year and is 79 per cent more than pre-Covid levels, official data showed.
image for illustrative purpose
New Delhi: The government's collection from levy of excise duty on petroleum products has risen 33 per cent in the first six months of the current fiscal when compared with last year and is 79 per cent more than pre-Covid levels, official data showed.
Data available from the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) in the Union Ministry of Finance showed excise duty collections during April-September 2021 surging to over Rs 1.71 lakh crore, from Rs 1.28 lakh crore mop-up in the same period of the previous fiscal. Thanks to a steep hike in excise duty rates, the collection is 79 per cent more than Rs 95,930 crore mop-up in April-September 2019. In the full 2020-21 fiscal, excise collections were Rs 3.89 lakh crore and in 2019-20, it was Rs 2.39 lakh crore, CGA data showed.
After the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, excise duty is levied only on petrol, diesel, ATF and natural gas. Barring these products, all other goods and services are under the GST regime. Out of the Rs 2.3 lakh crore excise collection in 2018-19, Rs 35,874 crore was devolved to states, according to the CGA. In the previous 2017-18 fiscal, Rs 71,759 crore was devolution to the states out of a collection of Rs 2.58 lakh crore. The incremental collection of Rs 42,931 crore in the first six months of the fiscal year 2021-22 (April 2021 to March 2022) is four times the Rs 10,000 crore liability that the government has in the full year towards repayment of oil bonds that were issued by the previous Congress-led UPA government to subsidise fuel.
The bulk of excise duty collection is from the levy on petrol and diesel and with sales picking up with a rebounding economy, the incremental collections in the current year may be over Rs 1 lakh crore when compared with the previous year, industry sources said. In all, the UPA government had issued Rs 1.34 lakh crore worth of bonds (equivalent to a sovereign commitment to pay in future) to state-owned oil companies to compensate them for selling fuel such as cooking gas LPG, kerosene and diesel at rates below cost.
