Gold jewellery amongst top in customs revenue chart of items

According to Customs department at the at the Sardar Vallabhabhai Patel International airport, Ahmedabad, gold jewellery continues to be the ace revenue earner amongst other items which attract import duty, reports say.

In 2014-15, apart from gold jewellery, other items which made up over 70 per cent of Rs 7.08 crore revenues / duty collected include petroleum duty, liquor, electronic goods, silver jewellery and cigarettes.

The rise in collections over the years is important as the Indian government had laid many restrictive laws on gold import in June 2013. Also, duty on gold is 10 percent when the traveller is returning from abroad after six months else it is 36 percent if the retrun is before six months. Also, a woman is permitted to bring in gold jewellery worth Rs 1 lakh while a male passenger can bring gold up to Rs 50,000, reports add. All this along with the lower prices of gold outside India are prompting more purchase abroad, reports add.