 "A saleswoman checks the weight and quality of gold jewellery inside a showroom in Mumbai")
Jewellers have begun registration with the excise department here, albeit slowly, despite their active support to striking industry colleagues against the 1 per cent excise duty levy.
A senior official with the Office of the Commissioner of Central Excise here said that 24 jewellers have obtained their registration so far. Industry sources estimate those seeking excise registration might be large organized sector jewellers with branded jewellery as their main business portfolio.
Read more from our special coverage on "JEWELLERS,EXCISE DUTY"
Seeking registration with the excise department indicates a clear divide among jewellers in a bid to protest excise duty levy. With the government's continuous denial over excise duty rollback, jewellers especially with large retail formats do not have any option but to register and open their stores.
Their daily expenses including rentals, workers' fixed costs and others are so high that they cannot afford strike for a long period.
"Large branded players do not have any problem as far as maintaining books of accounts are concerned. Hence, they started getting registration and opened their stores as usual. Unorganized sector players, however, continued to face problems as they cannot afford huge administrative expenses. So, maintaining books of accounts are problems for unorganized sector players," said Kumar Jain, Director, Umedmal Tilokchand Zaveri, a Zaveri Bazaar based jewellery retailer.
Interestingly, the premier bullion dealers' body India Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA) has called off the strike on March 19 after written assurance from the Finance Ministry of no raids, search and seizure.
Excise department has already assured jewellers of no human intervention in the entire process of excise duty. Still, jewellers continued their strike 28th day in a row amid fear of returns of "Gold Control" era of early sixties when holding over certain caratage and grammage of gold was considered as a crime.
Considering the branded segment contribute nearly 20-25 per cent of overall jewellery sales and that also with multiple retail showrooms across the country, registration with excise department is lukewarm.
