Govt asks jewellers to settle excise dues

New Delhi, Apr 25 (KNN) The CBEC has asked the jewellers to settle their excise dues for March to May and of June and get themselves registered with the Central Excise department by July 1.

CBEC said the jewellers  were liable to pay excise duty with effect from March 1, 2016. 

In the Union Budget 2016-17, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has announced levy of 1% excise on non-silver jewellery. The jewellers were protesting against the move and kept their businesses shut for almost six weeks.

The government has, meanwhile, set up a committee under former Chief Economic Adviser Ashok Lahiri to look into the demand of agitating jewellers and into their grievances with regard to compliance and operating procedures for payment of excise duty.

The other members of the committee include legal expert Rohan Shah, Commerce Ministry Joint Secretary Manoj Kumar Dwivedi, CBEC Joint Secretary in Tax Research Unit Alok Shukla and Gautam Ray.

Representatives from the trade will be shortly appointed to the panel.

The CBEC has also asked all associations or trade and industry to submit their representations before the committee by emailing to ‘high levelcommittee@gmail.com’.