Uttarakhand jewellers' strike enters into Day 18

DEHRADUN: The protest by the jewellers of Uttarakhand entered 18th day today. A massive rally was conducted by various jewellery associations in state capital, Dehradun, against Centre government's decision to slap 1 per cent tax on gold and diamond studded ornaments on jewellers whose annual turnover is over Rs. 6 crore.

The rally started from Saraswati market, Dhamawala to Globe Chowk wherein, all the small, medium and large scale jewellers from Dehradun and its outskirts - Vikas nagar, Sahaspur, Doiwala, Bhaniawala and Jolly grant - participated.

The crowd of nearly 500 jewellers and their workers raised slogans against BJP government and burnt effigy of union finance minister, Arun Jaitley. They got support from CITU, CPIM and Shiva Sena too, as their representatives were also present in the protest.

On March 17, Delhi witnessed representations of Uttarakhand by 2000 jewellers from the state in Ramleela maidan along with jewellers of other states. But their protest couldn't yield any favourable decision hence, on call of All-India jewellers association the traders continued to be on strike.

Speaking with TOI, Manmeet Singh, general secretary of Sarrafa Mandal Dehradun, explained that they are ready to pay tax but not under excise department, he said, "We are already paying 57% different types of taxes on gold business and we are ready to pay even 1% additional tax, provided it is imposed on us in the form of any other tax rather creating a new category altogether and adding burden on us. Excise department is not acceptable to us."

The jewellers are also not in favour taking PAN details of the customers as they tagged it a 'cumbersome' task. "In India over 80% do not have PAN card, however government has made an alternate provision to get the details of customers who purchase gold above Rs. 2 lakh by filling form 60. It is highly tedious and intimidating work to convince customers to give personal details, simply to fill the form. All these adverse mandatory steps will affect our business in long-run. It is neither acceptable to us nor to the customers." he added.

It is noteworthy that one of the jewellers of Dehradun, Rajesh Bhola who owns Sagar Jewllers opened his shop in spite of bandh and started selling holi colours tagging it a mode of survival for him and his family. And his initial steps to change the business to earn livelihood for his family.

The protest by jewellers caused traffic snarls and problem to commuter however, later on lives came on track as rally returned to its protest spot in Dhamawala.

Meanwhile, today Centre has formed a committee which is seeking suggestions from the jewellers to come to bring a happy end to this long bitter battle of jewellers against GOI, as per jewellers of Dehradun.