HYDERABAD, Jan 22: The chairman of Central Board of Revenue (CBR), Riaz Ahmed Malik, on Tuesday dispelled the impression that any retrenchment was being carried out in the CBR (income tax, central excise and custom department) and said that structural reforms were being brought about which might take sometime.

While talking to newsmen at the office of the income tax commissioner, Hyderabad, he said that the road map in this regard would be ready in about four months.

Answering a question about the revenue targets, he said that an ambitious target of Rs430 billion was fixed for the last fiscal year which was revised to Rs406 billion. He, however, said that the total collection for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2001, was Rs393 billion.

For the fiscal year 2001-2002 the revenue target was Rs430 billion and during the first six-month Rs175 billion had been collected and deposited in the national exchequer.

About the shortfall in the collection of revenue last year, the CBR chairman pointed out that it was for the first time that a record refund of Rs17.5 billion was made to the exporters etc.

About trade with Afghanistan, he said that about 32 items had been identified for exports to Afghanistan and added that the concessions of duty draw back and zero rating had been withdrawn.

Answering another question about the affects of Sept 11 on the revenue collections, he said that due to reduced import, the recovery in customs duty, sales tax, withholding tax etc. had been reduced between 12 per cent to 25 per cent.

The Revenue Commissioner, Southern Region (Sindh, Balochistan), Akhtar Jameel Khan, on the occasion said that the region had been given a target of revenue collection of Rs38.8 billion for the fiscal year 2000-2001 out of which Rs38.3 billion had been collected.

Meanwhile, the CBR chairman told the officials of the income tax department that he was meeting the officials of Grade-17 and above with a view to streamline the working of the CBR and collection of revenue through the exchange of ideas.

To a question, he said that reforms were being brought about in the department under which an individual officer would not be able to make arbitrary and unilateral decisions. The system would be more powerful than the individual, he added.

Elaborating on reforms, Mr Mailk said that previously the central excise duty had to be collected from 5,000 industrial units but now only 50 units came into the tax umbrella.

Earlier, the commissioner, income tax, Hyderabad zone, Ilyas Shaikh, said that his zone had surpassed the budgetary targets of income tax collection and added that although there was a lull in the economic activities and efforts were being made to meet the revenue targets.