15 days after strike began, govt to meet jewellers on excise duty

March 16, 2016 09:00

The Union government will today meet jewellery associations who have been on a pan-India strike for 15 days against the proposed 1 per cent excise duty on non-silver jewellery

The Centre has already asserted that the levy will not be rolled back.

"Even as we are incurring losses, we will continue the strike till the government completely rolls back the 1 per cent excise duty. As an alternate we have suggested the government to either marginally hike the Customs duty or to impose an one time bullet tax," All-India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF) Chairman Sreedhar G V said.

The excise duty will encourage 'inspector raj' as the department officials will harass the jewellers unless there is an amendment in the law itself, he said.

"One piece of jewellery consists of many parts made by different people and artisans. To keep records of each and every part of the single jewellery will be cumbersome and require additional manpower and infrastructure, which is difficult for many jewellers to manage," Sreedhar said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the budget proposed 1 per cent excise duty on jewellery without input credit, or 12.5 per cent with input tax credit, on jewellery, excluding silver other than studded with diamonds and some other precious stones.

The Finance Ministry later clarified only jewellers with turnover of more than Rs 12 crore will be liable to pay 1 per cent excise duty on non-silver jewellery items.

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