Jewellers across Mumbai have joined the all India strike on Wednesday.
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Kundapur taluk Jeweller’s association held protest rally and submitted a memorandum to the government department official on February 10 urging to withdraw the order of the union ministry of finance which has made submission of PAN card details for gold purchases exceeding Rs two lacs mandatory.
The All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF), which is one of the apex bodies representing jewellers across the country, says that the government’s decision will affect gold transactions severely as a majority of people still don’t have PAN cards.
Speaking to NewsToday, Madras Jewellery and Diamond Merchants Association secretary S Santhakumar said, ‘Jewellers are facing a lot of difficulties ever since the Centre enforced the new rule from 1 January.
“We strongly oppose this regulatory measure which has badly hit hundreds of thousands of jewellers and artisans employed on this business”.
More than 70 percent of the customers for the small scale jewellers are from rural areas and small town, where the number of PAN card holders are less.
He stated the restriction on jewellery consumers has already dented enterprise volumes, with the complete turnover dropping over 30 per cent since the imposition of the restriction a few month in the past. Members of the GJF said the PAN card restriction had discouraged a majority of semi-urban and rural jewellery buyers, many of whom did not have PAN card.
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The one-day strike, which saw participation of about 100,000 jewellers across India under more than 200 associations, is the first of many such large-scale strikes being organised ahead of the 2016 Budget in a bid to pressure the government to revoke the new norms, and to come out with a clear demarcation between gold and gold jewellery purchases. The traders took out a rally protesting the PAN card restriction and demanded the limit of purchase be increased to Rs10.
