The import figures for the state have seen a healthy rise in the last financial year. As a result, revenues for Gujarat customs department have seen a three-fold rise. The department realized Rs 18,454 crore revenues between April 2010 and February 2011, which was Rs 7,581 crore for the corresponding period last year.

The revenues have mainly come from increased imports of petroleum products like crude oil and refined petroleum oil, gold and industrial machinery. The department's revenue from crude oil import jumped from Rs 905.67 crore to Rs 6835 crore which is a whopping 654% rise.

Also revenues from import of gold which stood at Rs 364.16 crore last year moved up by 116.6% to Rs 789.72 crore. "The public and private oil companies and refineries have seen impressive growth figures in the last fiscal, which has fueled the three-fold increase in collection of revenues for the customs department in Gujarat," said a senior customs official.

He added that Gujarat was the first state in the country to interlink all ports and concerned authorities through the web which has considerably reduced the paper work involved in getting import license. The last financial year also saw continuous exploitation of Gujarat shores for smuggling of Red Sanders and other banned products.

The customs department had last year seized 6.08 metric tonne worth Rs 72.6 lakh of Red Sanders which was being smuggled to Dubai from Gujarat. Meanwhile, Ahmedabad central excise zone fell short of the annual revenue target collection of Rs 7,585 crore.

However, Rs 7,246.42 crore of revenue collected in the last financial year was around 12% up from the figures collected last year