The government on Sunday said an amount of Rs 21,128.59 crore has been collected as Clean Environment Cess from across the country in the April-January period of the ongoing fiscal. Of the Rs 21,128.59 crore, the component of central excise was Rs 20,285.27 crore and the component of Customs was Rs 843.32 crore, Minister of State for Coal and Power Piyush Goal said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.

In last fiscal the collection from Clean Environment Cess from across India was Rs 13,847.87 crore.

While in FY’15, the cess collected was Rs 5,844.55 crore in FY’14 it was Rs 3,217.13 crore, the minister informed.

“As per the information furnished by the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, the state-wise data on collection of Clean Environment Cess in not maintained,” Goyal said.

Renaming the Clean Energy Cess as Clean Environment Cess, Finance Minister Arun Jaitly in his Budget speech for 2016-17 had proposed to raise the cess on coal, lignite and peat from Rs 200 a tonne to Rs 400 per tonne.

Source: http://indianexpress.com/