Govt to make hallmarking of gold jewellery mandatory
02 Dec 2019
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The government is making hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts mandatory in India and the Department of Consumer Affairs will issue a notification to this effect soon, union minister for consumer affairs, food and public distribution Ram Vilas Paswan has announced.
Addressing media after the announcement, Paswan said a notification for mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts across the nation will be issued on 15 January 2020, while one year time will be given for its implementation.
This, he said, will ensure that new assaying and hallmarking (A&H) centres are set up by private entrepreneurs at locations where demand of gold jewellery and artefacts arises.
This will help in completion of the registration process of jewellers and give enough time for retailers of jewellery to clear their existing stocks.
The minister said that hallmarking will benefit the poor people in villages and small towns who are not able to make out the purity of gold they have been buying.
The BIS (Bureau of Indian standards) Act 2016 has enabling provisions under Section 14 and Section 16 for making hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts mandatory by the central government. This will make it compulsory for all the jewellers selling gold jewellery and artefacts to register with BIS and sell only hallmarked gold jewellery and artefacts. The draft Quality Control Order for mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts has been hosted on WTO website on 10 October 2019 for comments for a period of 60 days, he said.
The BIS Act 2016 has been implemented with effect from 12 October 2017 and BIS Hallmarking Regulations 2018 notified with effect from 14 June 2018. BIS has been running a hallmarking scheme for gold jewellery since April 2000. As on 31 October 2019 there are 877 assaying and hallmarking centres spread over 234 districts across the country and so far 26,019 jewellers have taken BIS registration, he added.
