Even as jewellers continued with their country-wide strike for the eighth day demanding their exclusion from the proposed excise duty,a top Finance Ministry official on Saturday assured them of further talks to remove their misunderstandings. They have to pay only 30 paise duty on a Rs 100 transaction.thats 0.3 per cent duty, Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Chairman S K Goel told PTI on the sidelines of a conference here. The jewellers,who are protesting against budgetary provision to levy excise duty of one per cent on 30 per cent of the transaction value,staged a sit-in here as part of their strike which began a day after the Budget presentation. We dont want to come under the excise net as it would be difficult for small jewellers to comply with the complexities of this duty.this will be a throwback to inspector raj, Mumbai Wholesale Gold Jewellers Association President Vinod Jain said. However,Goel said levying of the duty,to be implemented from the next fiscal,will not be a big issue for the jewellers,especially on the book-keeping front. They are already paying VAT,so they will not have to maintain any new records. We are talking with them to clear their misunderstandings, he said.
