According to a Finance Ministry data, there has been an increase of over 300 times in revenue collection from service tax in the past two decades.

The ministry had collected Rs 1.32 lakh crore as service tax revenue during 2012-13 as against Rs 407 crore in 1994-95, it said. About Rs 97,509 crore of service tax revenue was collected during 2011-12.

The tax officials are taking strict action against all evaders after a first-of-its-kind amnesty scheme for service tax defaulters ended in December last year.

The Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme (VCES), which was implemented from May 10 last year, was announced by Finance Minister P Chidambaram to allow a service tax defaulter to pay dues without any penalty or late fees.

Under the scheme, a person was to make a declaration to the designated authority on or before December 31, 2013.

A total of 66,062 applications were received under the VCES scheme, amounting to a tax collection of Rs 3,961.51 crore, as per the ministry's data.

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