Snacks major Pepsi Foods Ltd topped the list of top 10 excise duty payers in the northern region, according to data provided by Central Excise Department. The data further showed that central excise duty collections in the region showed buoyancy and grew by 30 per cent for the year 2010-11.

As per the data, Pepsi Foods, which has a manufacturing facility at Channo in Sangrur district of Punjab, paid the highest excise duty of Rs 43.97 crore for the year 2010-11, an increase of 11 per cent compared to duty paid in 2009-10. Other companies who feature in the top 10 tax payers list include Jammu and Kashmir based Saraswati Agro who paid a duty of Rs 37.44 crore, Birla Cement at Sangrur in Punjab with duty payment of Rs 34.87 crore, and Godrej and Boyce in Mohali, Punjab who paid excise duty of Rs 27.04 crore Also, the total collections of central excise duty in the northern region comprising Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh rose to Rs 807.44 crore in last fiscal against collections of Rs 623.10 crore in 2009-10.

Excise duty collections from industrially developed cities such as Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar showed an impressive growth of 81 per cent, surpassing pace of collections in Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

According to commodity-wise collections, revenue from chemicals and plastics remained highest in north at Rs 422.38 crore, up by 52 per cent in 2010-11.

Other commodities such as iron and steel, and electrical items contributed excise duty amounting to Rs 339.66 crore and 158.34 crore, respectively. However, excise duty collections from sugar, cement and cosmetics showed a decline of 41 per cent, 33.3 per cent and 92.34 per cent, respectively.

Collections from service tax, an important segment of tax collections, remained subdued in the last fiscal and registered a growth of just one per cent to Rs 741.41 crore.

The department also could not achieve service tax collection target of Rs 825 crore for 2010-11. "Companies like airtel have now started paying service tax in Gurgaon instead of paying here, which affected growth in service tax collection," a senior official said. airtel used to pay a service tax of Rs 69 crore to the department here, he added. Collections from customs jumped by 20.73 per cent to Rs 693.30 crore in 2010-11.