Bullion merchants of the city on Wednesday downed their shutters in protest against Union Government’s move to increase excise duty on bullion trading as announced by the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the recently presented Union Budget.
Following a call of the Madhya Pradesh Sarafa Merchants Association, over 400 sarafa merchants of the city closed their business establishments in Sarafa and other localities of the city to protest rise in excise duty. As a result of strike, bullion trading in the city today suffered a loss of about Rs10 crore.
Meanwhile, in an emergency meeting of the Sarafa Merchants Association, the bullion merchants have decided to continue their strike for the next two days. The Union Finance Minister while presenting the Union budget for this fiscal, had announced increase in excise duty by 1 per cent for those bullion merchants who have an annual transaction of Rs6 crore and more.
Madhya Pradesh Sarafa Merchants Association president Hukum Soni informed that as decided in today’s meeting, the strike of bullion merchants of the city will continue for the next two days, seeking abolition of excise duty as raised by the Union government in its budget. He said raise in excise duty will tremendously affect business of bullion merchants in the country, hence the government should revoke its decision.
Sometime back also, bullion merchants of the city along with their counterparts in other parts of the country had gone one a day-long strike, protesting Union government’s move of making PAN card compulsory for a jewellery purchasing of Rs2 lakh and more.