Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery & Artefacts will be mandatory from Jan.15, 2020 : Paswan

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : Union Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on November 29, 2019,  announced that Gold Hallmarking will be made mandatory across the nation from January 15, 2020.

Addressing media after the announcement, Paswan said that Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery & Artefacts is being made mandatory in India for which a notification will be issued  by the Department of Consumer Affairs and a period of one year will be given for implementation to 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 ;completion of the registration process of jewellers and one year 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 Bureau of Indian Standards(BIS) Act 2016 has enabling provisions under Section 14 & 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 was posted on WTO website on  October 10, 2019, for comments for a period of 60 days, according to a PIB release.

The BIS Act 2016 was implemented with effect from October 12, 2017, and BIS Hallmarking Regulations 2018 was notified on June 14, 2018. BIS has been running a hallmarking scheme for gold jewellery since April 2000. As on October 31, 2019, there are 877 Assaying and hallmarking (A&H) centres spread over 234 district locations across the country and so far 26,019 jewellers have taken BIS registration.