Jewellery and bullion traders downed their shutters for the 10th day on Monday across various parts of the country. They are protesting Excise duty levy on unbranded jewellery and the doubling of import duty on gold.

In this year's Budget, the Government has doubled the import tax on gold bars to 4 per cent of value along with an excise duty of 0.3 per cent on unbranded jewellery, raising the cost by more than Rs 1,000 for 10 g.The Budget also proposed a levy of 1 per cent of tax collected at source for transactions valued at over Rs 2 lakh.

“At least two crore people are involved in the jewellery trade. Imposing Excise duty will impact our business severely. Also, lot of jewellery trade is still a small and medium industry,” Mr Surender Khandelwal, Treasurer, Bullion Association of India, said.

In the Capital, thousands of jewellers protested in the Walled City area on Monday. Mr Khandelwal claimed that the industry had suffered a Rs 4,000 crore loss due to the protest in the past 10 days.

Mr S.L. Jain, President of the Chandni Chowk Jewellers' Association, said they had called for an indefinite strike and had sent their demands back to the Government.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), too, sought the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee's direct intervention to end the logjam. Expressing concern over the strike, the CAIT urged the Finance Minister to initiate a dialogue with the striking traders immediately.

Mr Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General, CAIT suggested that the Government impose 1 per cent tax in the form of value added tax instead of levying excise duty, which would increase paper work and add to the tax burden of small jewellers.

>bindu.menon@thehindu.co.in

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