Rollback excise duty hike on jewellery: Kejriwal urges Modi

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to rollback the proposed hike in excise duty on jewellers for the next Budget 2016-17. 

The jewellers across the country are up in arms against the proposal of the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and are protesting in various cities of the country against the proposed hike.

“The Central government declared in the Budget to hike 1 per cent excise duty on jewellers. The Delhi government strongly objects to it and I request you (Modi) to rollback the duty immediately,” said Kejriwal in the letter. 

Delhi Chief Minister sent the letter after a delegation of the jewellers met him and sought his support for the rollback. The AAP leader said jewellers did not have to pay any excise duty so far, and this was the first time when excise duty has been imposed on them. He also cautioned the Central government against misuse of the provision by excise inspectors and possible extortion from the jewellers. 

“The government would not get any revenue by hiking 1 per cent excise duty. All the money would be sacrificed on the altar of corruption. This would increase problems for jewellers. In spite of doing their work, the jewellers would be busy making new account registers for the excise department and the government will have to spend more money compared to that collected from the hiked excise duty,” he added. He also reminded the Modi government about a similar proposal of the UPA government in 2012 and a rollback by the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. 

Earlier in the day, thousands of jewellers, bullion traders and artisans today held a mega rally at Ram Lila ground in the national capital to protest against the Budget proposal of imposing 1 per cent excise duty on non-silver jewellery and vowed to continue their strike indefinitely.