JAMMU: Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced crackdown on blackmoney and scrapped 500 and 1000 currency notes, the jewellers’ market in old city of Jammu is witnessing complete shutdown.
Even after the ban was imposed, some of the big jewellery shops under pressure from high end customers had reportedly transacted heavy volume business without completing basic formalities to keep track of the fund trail.
Panic gripped the jewellers’ market after some of the shops were surveyed by the sleuths of Income Tax Department, as part of its all India drive on November 9. The market was closed down temporarily to avoid inconvenience to customers.
But as the IT sleuths exercised their authority and sought details of big transactions during the 48 hour period after Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes were rendered as invalid tenders by the Centre, the Jewellers Association decided to observe complete shutdown.
Fearing tough action from the IT Department, majority of shop owners decided to close down their businesses to avoid getting black listed.
The shops where the surveys were conducted by the IT officials had to fall in line as some of them were caught red handed by the IT Department.
The shops were surveyed randomly and notices were served to them after series of complaints were received by the IT Department against unholy nexus between jewellers and some elite customers who transacted heavy volume business in violation of the laid down rules and regulations.
When contacted some of the jewellers complained that because of some dirty fish the whole market is suffering. A prominent jeweller claimed that when majority of us are running our businesses as per rules and regulations and willing to share details of our transactions a handful of big sharks are not allowing it to happen for their own vested interest. A section of jewellers claimed that all those jewellers who are in the habit of adopting unethical business practices should be penalised but at the same time others should not be painted with the same brush and penalised for none of their faults.
“In the ongoing wedding season, we are losing daily business for no fault of ours and all those who are at fault are trying to find out an escape route to save their skins” some of the jewellers, eager to open their shops said. “We are hoping to reopen our shops on Friday or Saturday as we are suffering the most and we cannot afford to close down our business for a longer duration”, they added.