Jewellers’ Association of Uttranchal and the members of Sarafa Mandal Dehradun have decided to shut their shops for three hours on Friday as a token protest against the Central Government’s directive to the jewllers to collect photo copy of PAN cards from the customers if they purchase gold items are beyond `1 lakh from their shops.
The members of both the associations will assemble at Sarawati Bazaar, Dhamawala and they will carry out a rally to Collectorate.
They will submit a memorandum, addressing the Union Finance Minister to District Magistrate on Friday.
Gurjeet Singh, State general secretary of JAU, said that jewelers will shot down their shop from 9 am to 12 pm.
He said that jewellary trade is being adversely affected after the Centre has made mandatory for the customers to submit photo copy of PAN cards if they purchase gold items beyond `1 lakh from a shop.
According to him, the previous Congress-led Government at the Centre had made mandatory for the jewellary traders to collect photo copy of PAN cards from customers if they purchase gold items beyond `5 lakh. It did not affect us much, he said.
However, the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley having lowered the bar from `5 lakh to 1 lakh has landed us in problem, he said.
He said that around 70 per cent of total population of the country lives in villages and their source of income is from agriculture and this sector has been exempted from tax.
Such decision would affect the most the small jewellary shops as their customers are low and medium income group people, Singh added.