New Delhi: India's direct tax collections grew by 6.59 percent to 302,810 crore in the first seven months of the current financial year, official data showed on November 8.

"Gross direct tax collections during April-October of the current financial year were up by 6.59 percent and stood at 302,810 crore as against 284,081 crore in the same period last year," the finance ministry said in a statement.

Net direct tax collections in the first seven months of the current fiscal grew at a healthy 14.63 percent at 250,866 crore against 218,850 crore the same period of the last financial year.

Gross collections of corporate taxes grew by marginal 2.01 percent to 193,679 crore in the April-October period of the 2012-13 fiscal as compared to 189,872 crore in the corresponding period of last fiscal year.

Gross collections of personal income tax jumped by 15.78 percent to 108,569 crore in the period under review as compared to 93,769 crore in the corresponding period of last year.

Wealth tax collections grew by 25.84 percent to 526 crore in the period under review from 418 crore collected in the corresponding period of 2011-12.

However, collections from securities transaction tax (STT) slumped by 15.42 percent to 2,502 crore from 2,958 crore.

Earlier, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had said that the I-T (income tax) department will adopt a non-adversarial approach in realising the direct tax target of 5.70 lakh crore for the current fiscal year.

He also added that the collections will improve in the second half of the fiscal and that the government will achieve its target of 15 percent collection growth during 2012-13.