According to senior revenue department officials, collection figures in the first two weeks of September indicate customs duty realisation this month will be about Rs 1,000 crore more than last month's figure.

They said that in comparison to the September 1998 collection, a growth of more than 25 per cent was expected in September this year.

Incidentally, customs collections rose to Rs 3,917 crore in August 1999, against Rs 3,222 crore in August 1998, a growth of 21.6 per cent.

The growth in customs mop-up in the first five months of the current financial year over the same period last year, however, has been only 13.11 per cent.

Customs revenue collection up to August this year was Rs 18,149.97 crore, against Rs 16,045.75 crore during the same period last year.

The budget estimate for customs revenuecollection in 1999-2000 has been placed at Rs 50,369 crore, 23.1 per cent higher than last year's collection of Rs 40,917 crore.

It may be noted that growth in revenue realisation through customs in 1998-1999 over 1997-98 was negligible. Though no analysis on the spurt in customs collection has been done yet, officials feel rising international crude oil prices are playing a major role in this regard.

They also said that the efforts of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) towards enhancing revenue collections by making the process more consumer friendly have started bearing fruit. The CBEC had charted out an action plan for this purpose in July this year during a two-day conference of chief commissioners in the capital.