Mr P. Chidambaram

Buoyed by an upbeat trend in direct tax receipts in 2006-07, the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, is to interact with the Chief Commissioners of Income-Tax (CCITs) on Tuesday to chalk out an action plan for sustaining this performance in the current fiscal too.

In a departure from past practice, when CCITs were required to come to headquarters here for such interactions, the Finance Minister would use "the latest video-conferencing facility of the income-tax department from North Block for reaching out to the CCITs at 46 stations across the country."

Hitherto, the I-T department did not have such a video-conferencing facility. "We now have a video-conferencing facility that would enable the Finance Minister to address the cadre-controlling CCITs across the country. He will inaugurate this facility on Tuesday. Group A and Group B cities as well as small towns would be covered," an I-T department official said.

The interaction also comes in the backdrop of the Centre achieving the direct tax collections budget estimate of Rs 2,10,684 crore for 2006-07. This represented a 27.53 per cent increase over the direct tax collections of Rs 1,65,202 crore recorded in fiscal 2005-06.

Official sources said that direct tax collections have topped Rs 2,24,000 crore for fiscal 2006-07 and that the Central Board of Direct Taxes is well on course to achieve the Rs 2,29,272-crore revised target for the same year.

For 2007-08, the Centre has pegged direct tax collections target at Rs 2,67,490 crore. This represented a 26.96 per cent increase to the budget estimate of Rs 2,10,684 crore for 2006-07 and 16.67 per cent increase over the revised estimate of Rs 2,29,272 crore for the same year.