Centre’s coffers swell due to rise in import duty receipts: Report

The Centre’s customs duty receipts have risen on the back of imports in the three months ending November. This is against the declining trend seen in most of the first half of the current fiscal, as mentioned in a report by Mint. The only laggard left in the Centre’s tax revenue collections is the excise duty, which has decreased from previous year’s level. The immense recovery seen in the customs duty receipts is a relief to the policymakers trying to balance the budget during a surge in the subsidy outgo. Abhishek Jain, partner, indirect tax at KPMG, stated the reasons behind the increase in dollar value of imports and the recovery in customs duty collections. According to him, the reasons could be improvement in the volume of imports and firmer prices in international markets for various items in India’s import basket. Over Rs 86,200 crore in customs duty was collected by the Centre in the first half of current fiscal. The custom duty was nearly 7 percent below what the government had collected in the same period a year ago. The custom duty collections started to increase in September itself, and the trend reversed in the three months to November. Customs receipts were Rs 1.41 trillion at the end of November, a rise of more than 12 percent from the year-ago period. This data was revealed by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA). The merchandise imports in India grew around 30 percent between April and November to $493.61 billion against the $381.17 billion during the comparable period last year. This data was unveiled by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Items like coal, silver, fertilizers, and petroleum drove the growth in India’s import between April and November. There was an increase by 259 percent in the cotton imports during the period amid a global shortage. Meanwhile, coal, silver, and fertilizer imports grew by 97 percent, 179 percent, and 62 percent, respectively. On the other hand, petroleum (crude and products) also surged 52 percent during the period as India’s energy demands bounced back after the COVID-19 induced lockdowns. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .