The Centres direct tax collections, the target for which was scaled up mid-way for the current fiscal, went up by a mere 10.66 per cent to Rs. 19,708 crore in October as compared to Rs. 17,809 crore mopped up during the same month in 2007-08.

According to official sources, however, the collection figures for October this year are not comparable with October 2007 as corporates paid the shortfall in their tax liability in September after the last date of filing returns was advanced to September 30 this year from October 31.

During April-October, direct tax collections rose by 29.52 per cent to Rs. 1,66,905 crore from Rs. 1,28,864 crore in the year-ago period.

Collection by way of corporate tax went up by 33.49 per cent to Rs 1,05,174 crore, while the mop-up through personal income tax increased by 23.14 per cent to Rs 61,433 crore during seven-month period.

The direct taxes collection target, it may be recalled, was revised to Rs 3,95,000 crore from Rs 3,65,000 crore for 2008-09, which was more than 25 per cent higher than the actual collection of about Rs 3,14,000 crore in 2007-08.