With excise collections growing at less than 10 per cent in the April-December period, the Revenue Department is clamping down on evaders and those misusing Cenvat credit. It has so far registered 3,955 cases and raised demands of around Rs 2,300 crore (Rs 23 billion) .Out of this, it has collected Rs 392 crore (Rs 3.92 billion).

Most cases are in four sectors - pan masala, gutka and chewing tobacco, iron and steel, and plywood.

Officials said the department had also found several cases of Cenvat fraud. "We detected forged invoices, duplicate invoices and diversion of goods into the market," an official said.

He added in a case in Noida last week, the department found misuse of Cenvat credit to the tune of Rs 6 crore (Rs 60 million) and made a spot recovery of over Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million).

The department mopped up Rs 657.78 crore (Rs 6.58 billion) from audits during April-December, an increase of nearly 19 per cent compared with Rs 548.90 crore (Rs 5.49 billion) during April-December 2004-05. The mop-up from spot recovery was Rs 71.49 crore (Rs 714.9 million), an increase of 25 per cent over Rs 56.75 crore (Rs 567.5 million) during the same period last year.

The department had earlier this year initiated action to verify Cenvat utilisation for 300 units. It also undertook special audits in iron and steel as well as cement and chemicals sectors. The results are expected to be submitted soon.

Cenvat utilisation during April-October this year touched Rs 56,600 crore (Rs 566 billion) which is nearly 27 per cent higher than the Rs 44,500 crore (Rs 445 billion) during the 2004-05.