Nellore: The income tax raids on gold shops for the second time in 20 days have been causing unrest among gold traders. Income-Tax teams from Guntur and Tirupati, apart from Nellore, on Tuesday raided some gold shops at Mandapala Street, which is a hub for gold trading in Nellore city.

Incidentally, the department had raided gold shops on November 10 and 11 soon after the announcement of demonetisation following widespread rumours of sale of gold and gold biscuits at higher prices for those keen on converting banned notes into gold.

While the traders had no qualms about the raids in the second week of November they were upset with Wednesday’s raids as their business is already in the doldrums.

Referring to the disclosure of income under Income Declaration Scheme and the tax they paid in September following an assurance that there would not be any raids on those paying tax, the gold traders have been questioning the rationale behind targeting them again.

Bullion merchant’s association president Mr Santhilal Jain said that they had already suffered huge losses because of closure of shops for nearly two months in the beginning of the year.

They have been protesting against the one per cent excise duty on non-silver jewellery, and the demonetisation as well as introduction of GST will be the final blow to the trade.

“Business is so bad that we don’t have money to pay workers and other sundry expenses. The government’s intention seems to be to discourage people from buying gold,” Mr Santhilal observed, expressing concern over the future of over 3 lakh manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers and artisans in the country depending on the trade. He said they were left with no other alternative then closing down their business if the situation continued.