Over 250,000 jewellers from major cities came together for a peaceful candle march protesting government policy that mandates quoting Permanent Account Number (PAN) for every transaction of Rs 200,000.
Effective January 1, government cut the threshold for PAN quotation to Rs 200,000 from Rs 500,000 which, according to jewellers, reduced their sales at least by a quarter as consumers deferred purchase of medium- and high-end jewellery weighing over 60-70 grams.
"Jewellers felt the need for a peaceful protest through lighting candles in their nearby towns to attract government's attention on the issue. We also met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and drew his attention to the problems faced by the industry with this regulation. In fact, the Finance Minister justified the step to curb black money from gold jewellery trade. Since, the government has taken many steps in the past to smoothen trade and improved transparency, we are confident that this issue would also be sorted out with an increase in PAN threshold," said G V Shreedhar, Chairman, All India Gems & Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF), the organiser of the protest.
Trade sources believe that jewellery sector employs around 20 million karigars directly and indirectly. With this PAN quotation requirement, their livelihood has come at stake as activities at jewellers' level have declined tremendously resulting into their retrenchment.
"Therefore, the government must raise the PAN threshold limit to Rs 10,00,000 similar to that of real estate sector," demanded Kumar Jain, Director, Umedmal Tilokchand Zaveri, a city based bullion dealer and jewellery retailer.
