The government had collected Rs 3,762 crore from its service tax amnesty scheme this financial year, till Monday. About Rs 1,000 crore was originally estimated to be garnered from the ‘Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme’.

Officials in the finance ministry said 1,685 applications had come to the tax department under the scheme. It garnered momentum in recent days; the past five days saw Rs 957 crore collected. The scheme is open till December 31.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram had announced the scheme in the Budget for 2013-14. While there are nearly 1.7 million registered assessees under service tax, only about 700,000 file returns, he had said.

"Many have simply stopped filing. We cannot go after each of them. I have to motivate them to file returns and pay the dues," he had said.