Scores of jewellers in the State capital shuttered down their shops and staged a stir at Collectorate against the Central Government’s order of making it mandatory for the jewellers to collect PAN card numbers from the customers if they purchase gold items worth more than Rs 2 lakh. They submitted memorandum addressed to Union Finance Minister through administrative officer on Wednesday. They say that as many of the customers do not have PAN cards they are returning without buying the gold items. The small jewellers are bearing the brunt of the order, they say.
Members of Sarafa Mandal Dehradun assembled at Dhamawala after shutting down their shops and rallied till Collectorate while shouting slogans against the Central Government.
One of the agitating jewellers Praveen Jain said that the order issued by the Centre would land them in difficulty as far as their trade is concerned. “We have already started feeling the pinch of the order in the volume of our trade. This must be withdrawn or otherwise we would be forced to go for a full-blown stir,” he said.
Manmeet Singh, another association member, echoed the same, saying that it is adversely affecting them. “The Central government has arbitrarily slashed the amount from Rs5 lakh to Rs2 lakh on the matter. Our association demands the amount be raised to Rs10 lakh so as to spare us the adverse impact of the order,” he added.
He further said that a large number of the customers having no pan card is making things difficult for both the buyers and the sellers.
Another protester said that the previous Congress- led UPA government had fixed the amount at Rs five lakh. “It did not affect us much. However, the Union finance minister Arun Jaitley having lowered the bar from Rs5 lakh to Rs2 lakhs has landed us in problem,” he said.
He said that around 70 per cent of total population of the country lives in villages and they are living on agriculture. “This sector has been exempted from tax. The order would affect most the small jewellers as their customers are generally low and medium income class people,” he said.