Riding on higher mobilisation of service tax, the centre has collected Rs 3.75 lakh crore as indirect tax in the first 10 months of the current fiscal. This is 74.41 per cent of the budgeted target for 2012-13 financial year at Rs 5.50 lakh crore.

While excise has yielded Rs 1,38,654 crore during April-January 2012-13, which is 71.3 per cent of the budgetary estimate, collection from customs stood at Rs 134,802 crore (72.7 per cent of the estimate) and collection from service tax stood at 82.5 per cent of the budgetary estimate at Rs 1,02,322 crore, SS Palanimanickam, minister of state in the ministry of finance said in a written reply in Lok Sabha on Friday.

For the current fiscal, the government had proposed to collect Rs 5.05 lakh crore through customs, excise and services taxes, which would be an increase of 27 per cent over 2011-12.

The target for customs collection for 2012-13 has been fixed at Rs 1.87 lakh crore, while that of excise stood at Rs 1.93 lakh crore and for service tax at Rs 1.24 lakh crore.

In the first eight months (April-November) of this fiscal, indirect tax collection had grown at a moderate rate of 16.8 per cent to Rs 2.92 lakh crore vis-à-vis Rs 2.50 lakh crore in the corresponding period of the preceding financial year.