The jewellery retailers in West Bengal protested yesterday against the mandate for customers to declare the PAN number when buying jewellery of Rs.1 lakh and above, reports say. There were more than 10,000 jewellers who protested and felt the rule was unjust.

Although the industry believes the Central government is working to control black money, but there also has not been any respite on high gold import duty of 10 percent. The new compulsion regarding the PAN number has further disturbed the jewellers. The large number of retailers in protest would have caused a huge loss to these state and central government.