Government of India's Finance ministry has decided to roll bank excise duty on gold jewellery and as a result the sale of branded as well as unbranded gold jewellery in the country will not attract any excise duty.

The move comes after months of protests and opposition from jewellery sellers in the world's largest consumer of the bullion. The protests continued till days following eh announcement of the proposal and the jewelers also urged Mrs. Sonia Gandhi to address the matter.

Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukkherjee announced that the budgetary proposal to impose a excise duty was linked to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) but as the industry is to prepared to accept the duty he has decided to roll bank exercise duty for branded as well as unbranded gold jewellery.

Mukherjee has already said that he would review the proposal to impose excise duty on unbranded jewellery in the country following days of protests by jewelers.

Jewelers in the country have been protesting against the decision to introduce two per cent additional tax on gold in the union budget that was presented on 16 March 2012. The government is planning to impose 1 per cent excise duty on non-branded gold jewellery besides doubling the import duty on gold to 4 per cent.

Mukherjee had announced his decision to increase the duty on gold imports to 4 per cent in the country with effect from the next financial year. Experts say that unbranded gold ornaments will become more expensive by about Rs
1,000 per 10 grams due to the budget proposal to impose the excise duty.