Service tax collection during the first seven months of this fiscal stood at Rs 69,465 crore, Parliament was informed today.

"During the period from the month of April to October 2012, total amount of service tax collected was Rs 69,465 crore," Finance MinisterP Chidambaram said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Chidambaram further said to ensure the amount collected as service tax is paid to revenue department the government has taken number of measures.

"With effect from April 4, 2011, failure to pay the amount collected as service tax has been made a criminal offence punishable with imprisonment," he said.

Earlier, a senior Finance Ministry official had said in the first seven months of the current financial year, indirect tax collection, which include excise, customs and services tax, was Rs 2.57 lakh crore.

According to the official, while excise had yielded Rs 95,000 crore during the April-October period, collection from customs worked out to be about Rs 92,000 crore.

The government in the current fiscal has proposed to collect from customs, excise and services tax Rs 5.05 lakh crore, an increase of 27 per cent over realisation in the previous fiscal.

The target for customs collection for 2012-13 is fixed at Rs 1.87 lakh crore, for excise Rs 1.93 lakh crore and for service tax Rs 1.24 lakh crore.

The moderate growth in revenue realisation came in the backdrop of poor industrial output declining by 0.4 per cent in September and a very modest growth of 0.1 per cent during the first six months of the current fiscal.

The economy too registered a decade low growth of by 5.5 per cent in the first quarter of the fiscal. (Indian Express)