Indirect tax collection grew at a moderate rate of 16.8 per cent to Rs 2.92 lakh crore in the April-November period as against the annual growth target of 27 per cent. In the first eight months of the previous financial year, collection of indirect taxes comprising excise, customs and services tax, was Rs 2.50 lakh crore, sources in the Finance Ministry said.

While excise has yielded Rs 1,08,470 crore during April-November 2012, collection from customs and services tax worked out to be about Rs 1,04,864 crore and Rs 78,774 crore, respectively. The government in the current fiscal had 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 was fixed at Rs 1.87 lakh crore, for excise Rs 1.93 lakh crore and for service tax Rs 1.24 lakh crore. Earlier this week, the government had said it would be difficult to achieve the corporate tax, customs and excise mop-up target as projected in the Budget because of subdued corporate profits.

"On the tax revenue side, the trend growth in the mid-year is lower than estimated... The reason for under achieving target is due to macroeconomic environment being under stress," Chief Economic Adviser Raghuram Rajan had said. During November, indirect tax collection rose by 17.2 per cent to Rs 36,081 crore as compared to Rs 30,790 crore. The government realised Rs 13,012 crore from customs, Rs 13,760 crore from excise and Rs 9,309 crore from service tax.

The revenue realisation comes in the backdrop of 8.5 per cent growth in industrial output during October against contraction of 5 per cent in the same month last year.