New Delhi: The Government of India has made hallmarking for gold jewellery and related items mandatory from today. As per the new guidelines, jewellers across India will now be allowed to sell gold items of only 14, 18 and 22 carats.
From now on jewellers across the country can sell only Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certified products. A committee headed by BIS Director-General Pramod Tiwari has been set up by the government to ensure proper implementation of this rule.
The government has said that the guidelines will be initially implemented in 256 districts as part of a phase-wise plan.
Everything you need to know about this new rule:
- Gold hallmarking is a purity certificate of the precious metal.
- From June 15, 2021, jewellers will be able to sell only 14, 18 and 22 carats of gold jewellery and other artefacts. If a jeweller is found selling gold without BIS hallmark, he could be penalised five times the price of the product or could even face imprisonment of up to 1 year.
- The registration for BIS certification has been made online and simple.
- Though BIS has been running a hallmarking scheme for gold since April 200, the exercise has been voluntary so far.
- The aim of this move to make hallmarking compulsory is to ensure that customers are not cheated while buying gold products. This will also bring the Indian gold market in line with the global market standards.
- To ensure that the hallmarking is authentic, look for purity in carat and fitness, the BIS mark, the identification mark or the number of hallmarking centres, and the jeweller’s identity mark or number.
- Currently, there are 892 hallmarking centres across 234 districts in the country that hallmark gold of 28, 849 BIS registered jewellers.
- However, only around 40 per cent of gold jewellery is being hallmarked currently.
- This rule of hallmarking is currently implemented for jewellers and common customers can still sell their old gold jewellery without hallmark certification.
Earlier, in November 2019, the government had announced that hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts would be made mandatory across the country from 15 January 2021. But the deadline has been extended twice amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
