<p>Reflecting a growth in the economic activity and in line with its budget projections, the indirect tax collection for the first half of financial year 2015-16 (April-September 2015) stood at Rs 3.24 lakh crore compared to Rs 2.38 lakh crore collected in the year ago same period. This translates into a 35.8 per cent jump in the Indirect Tax collections in the first six months of 2015-16 over comparable period in 2014-15.<br><br>This is significant because the growth rate in collection is virtually double the budget projections of 18.8 per cent for the full fiscal. The government has budgeted to collect over Rs 6.47 lakh crore from indirect taxes in 2015-16 of which half has already been collected, the data shows. <br><br>The higher tax collection also captures the hike in excise duty on diesel and petrol, withdrawal of tax exemptions for motor vehicles, increase in clean energy cess and hike in service tax rate in June.<br><br>Bulk of the growth in the indirect taxes has been contributed by excise duty collection which grew 69.6 per cent during the period. Excise collection during April-September 2015-16 was over Rs 1.25 lakh crore, as against Rs 74,019 crore in the same period last fiscal. Collections from Customs duty also registered a growth of 17.5 per cent to over Rs 1.03 lakh crore during the six months period ended September 30, 2015. The service tax revenue grew 24.3 per cent to Rs 95,493 crore in this period.</p>
