By Frik Els
MINING.com
Over the past year and a half P. Chidambaram, India’s finance minister, has been fighting his country’s insatiable appetite for gold.
The world has watched him plead, scold and lecture Indians — especially bankers — on the importance of not importing excessive amounts of the yellow metal.
The roughly 3.5 million workers of India’s gold sector has suffered under a raft of measures that have damaged the trade immensely.
Gold import duties have risen tenfold — from 1% at the start of 2012 to 10% today. Excise duties now stand at 9% while new rules such as strictly cash only for imports and transaction taxes among other punitive measures have stymied India’s gold industry.