All sarafa and bullion markets of the city remained closed on Wednesday in protest against the Union Government’s move to make PAN card compulsory to purchase jewelries worth Rs 2 lakh and more. Under their day-long strike, all the jewelers and bullion merchants sat at dharna at Sarafa square of the city at 11 am on Wednesday and raised their protest against making PAN card compulsory for purchase of ornaments from the jewelers worth Rs 2 lakh and more.
Besides bullion merchants in Bada Sarafa and Chota Sarafa, all the major and minor jewelries showrooms in the city located across length and breadth of the city including at MG Road, A B Road, Sapna-Sangeeta Road, Patnipura, Padeshipura, Malwa Mill kept their shutters down. The day-long strike is expected to incur losses to Indore jewelers worth crores of rupees, while at the state-level the expected losses from day-long closure of jewelries shops is expected to be around Rs 400 crores.
According to the Madhya Pradesh Sarafa Association president Hukum Soni, the decision to go on strike had been taken unanimously by 300 jewelries associations across the country. He said Indore being the biggest sarafa market of Madhya Pradesh where over 10,000 people directly or indirectly are associated with jewelry business, compulsion of PAN card would dealt a heavy blow to the bullion business in the city. Of over 10,000 people, about 3,000 people are big and small bullion merchants, while over 7,000 are engaged in manufacturing of jewelries and they too would be adversely affected by the PAN card compulsion.
Soni said their association had been demanding to make the compulsion of PAN card on the purchase of ornaments from existing Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
However, the government instead of acceding to our demands has made PAN card compulsory for purchasing jweleries worth Rs 2 lakh and more, which is a sheer injustice with the bullion industry, Soni added.