Jewellers to Initiate 3 day Protest over Excise Duty from Tomorrow

The All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF) with co-ordination and recommendation from All India Jewellery Associations announced that jewellers including manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers will go on three day national strike from tomorrow onwards to protest against the one percent proposed excise duty on Jewellery sector.

President of  GJF, G V Sreedhar said that entire fraternity of jewellers called for three day strike from tomorrow onwards.

“We are trying to meet the Government over the hike in one per cent excise duty,” he added.

He said that the proposed excise duty of 1% without input credit or 12.5% excise with input credit will create huge liabilities for small manufacturers, who employ unskilled day-to-day labour at large, the very people the government wishes to exempt.

He explained that excise was introduced and withdrawn in 2005 & 2012 when UPA Government realized it was impractical to impose Excise on a very large unorganized sector".

In his budget speech Union Finance Minister Arun jaitely said I also propose to impose an excise duty of '1% without input tax credit or 12.5% with input tax credit' on articles of jewellery  excludingsilver jewellery, other than studded with diamonds and some other precious stones>, with a higher exemption and eligibility limits of ` 6 crores and ` 12 crores respectively. Necessary steps will also be taken to enable the new taxpayers to comply with this levy without any difficulty.