Gold hallmarking to be made compulsory

The government today approved a proposal making hallmarking of gold mandatory, which is currently voluntary.

The move is aimed at protecting consumers from unscrupulous jewellers.

The proposal was cleared by the union cabinet through an amendment to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Act, 1986. This Act aims to expand the ambit of mandatory hallmarking to include more products, including gold.

Hallmarking is a purity certification awarded by the Bureau of Indian Standards, which is the administrative authority for hallmarking.

The BIS (Amendment) Bill will empower the government to bring in a compulsory certification regime for any article and / or process that it considers necessary from the point of view of health, safety, environment and prevention of deceptive practice.

Currently, the BIS Act for conformity covers about 77 items, including food products, mineral water and milk products, lighting and electrical products, domestic appliances, building products like aluminium alloy, cement, automotive products, etc.

Besides mandatory hallmarking, the amendments to the BIS Act also seeks to introduce registration of relevant standards as an alternative mechanism to the compulsory certification regime to facilitate growth of sunrise sectors like IT and biotechnology and protect consumers from spurious and substandard imports.

It also aims to strengthen the penal provision for better and effective compliance with the provisions of the BIS Act.