Over 35,000 jewellery shops to down shutters in Tamil Nadu from tomorrow

Chennai: The gleaming gold shops on arterial T. Nagar, NSC Bose Road and Purasawakkam in the city besides other jewellery shops across Tamil Nadu, will for the first time, down their shutters for three days from tomorrow demanding the Centre to rescind the one per cent excise duty levy on articles of gold and diamond studded jewellery.

The strike will see the participation of about 35,000 jewellers including 7,000 in Chennai. In addition the gold and silver bullion and goldsmiths too would join the nation-wide strike from Wednesday.

“The strike will result in a transaction loss of Rs 250 crore per day in Tamil Nadu and on all India basis the transaction loss would be over Rs 900 - 1,000 crore crore per day,” says T. Shanta Kumar, managing director of Coimbatore-based Kirtilal Kalidas Jewellers Pvt.Ltd.

“Our association has already declared holiday for our nearly 2.5 lakh employees in Tamil Nadu,” Mr. Shanta Kumar told this correspondent. Both the State and Central governments would forfeit the revenue by way of taxes during the three-day strike.