Jewellers across the state of Maharashtra have made a decision to temporarily call off the strike between April 14 to 24, ending over the month long impasse with the jewellers’ association meeting Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday to keep up their proposal. Ashish Zaveri, spokesperson of Gujarat Jewellers Association (GJA) confirmed the development and said GJA will make an official announcement on Wednesday morning.
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Jewellery stocks rose on Wednesday after jewellers called off a 40-day strike. “We were hoping that the strike would create a pressure on the government and the excise levy would be rolled back as done on the past two occasions”. All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation president G K Shirdhar said the move to resume business and trade operations was an outcome of positive approach of the government on the issue. “The worst thing is that the government has made the entire jewellery industry susceptible with people have started looking at us with suspicious eyes”, said a jeweller. Jewellers are also against the mandatory quoting of PAN by customers for transactions of Rs 2 lakh and above. More than 300 associations comprising over 300,000 manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, artisans among others, participated in the nation-wide protest.
A large number of jewellers from Maharashtra have called off the strike to take advantage of the Gurupushyamrut yog day that falls on April 14.
“Around 70% of our demands have been accepted by the central government”.
“They have declared to withdraw it”, he said.
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The government, in the Union Budget 2016, had proposed a 1% excise duty on jewellery without input credit or 12.5% with input tax credit on jewellery excluding silver other than those studded with diamonds and precious stones.
