Jewellers strike continues, enters second week

Mumbai: Now if you are getting married soon and still haven't done your jewellery shopping - you should be a worried person because adding to your wedding stress is the fact that jewellers across the country are on a strike for over two weeks now. They're protesting the one per cent excise duty on unbranded jewellery announced in this year’s budget.

Despite heavy losses, associations maintain they shall strike work until the government rolls back the new excise and custom rates.

Indraprakash Phadnis is a nervous man. A fortnight left for his daughter's wedding - but the jewellery is still not in order, thanks to the ongoing indefinite strike called by jewellers across India.

"The wedding is on April 14 and we have been delivered some of the jewellery. But we are worried as we are still to get the remaining ones," Phadnis said.

For the last fortnight, jewellers have downed shutters protesting the 1 per cent excise on unbranded jewellery and hike in customs duty from 1 to 4 per cent. In Mumbai alone, around 25000 jewellers and 2 lakh workers have been on strike that is causing Rs 1,000 crore loss per day.

Jeweller Mohit said, "We are forced to come out on the streets so that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will hear us."

Financial experts, however, say that the taxes are necessary to divert funds from gold into investments but jewellers are adamant on a rollback.

With jewellers announcing an indefinite strike in the middle of a busy wedding season, the industry is set to face huge losses. But the associations maintain the new taxes will lead to a bigger loss to both them and the average consumer who will have to shell out more.

Posted in: Business