The economic slowdown has started hitting the government's revenue with   a big dent in its indirect collections. Excise and customs, the two main sources of indirect taxes for the government, showed declines of 15 per cent and 0.8 per cent, respectively, in November this year.

While excise duty collections were down at Rs8,556 crore in November this year against Rs10,065 crore in November 2007, customs duty mop up was down at Rs8,931 crore from Rs9,005 crore in the same period last year, according to a government press note.

For the first eight months of this fiscal, excise duty collections were down 1.5 per cent at Rs73,878 crore against Rs75,013 crore in the same period last year.

The total mop-up from excise and customs were up 5.3 per cent at Rs1,49,429 crore in the April-November period this fiscal against Rs1,41,851 crore in the last fiscal.

Customs duty collections, however, grew 13 per cent to Rs75,551 crore from Rs66,838 crore during April-November.

Excise collection had also fallen by 8.7 per cent in October and total collections in the April-October period this year are up by a marginal 0.6 per cent.

Service tax collections also grew 15.9 per cent to Rs4,366 crore in October 2008 from Rs3,767 crore in the same month last year. 

For the first seven months of this fiscal, the kitty grew 29.6 per cent to Rs34,958 crore from Rs26,971 crore in the same period last year.

The post-budget tax cuts, including the recent across-the-board four per cent excise cut announced in the government's fiscal stimulus package, are expected to make a Rs40,475 crore dent in government's 2008-09 revenue.

The government had set an indirect tax target of Rs320,000 crore for the current year, with the economy maintaining a growth rate of 9.3 per cent.