Centre planning hallmarking of gold bullion mandatory, says BIS

To protect consumers and enhance their confidence in hallmarked gold jewellery, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has prohibited — from April 1 — their sale and also that of gold artefacts without a six-digit alphanumeric Hallmark Unique Identification Number (HUID).

BIS also plans to bring gold bullion under mandatory hallmarking. Draft guidelines have already been prepared. It formed an advisory group last month and post group’s consideration, guidelines will be issued. It has begun consultations with stakeholders including industry representatives and jewellers.

To date, old hallmarked jewellery with four marks without the HUID is permitted to be sold.

Hallmarking was started by the BIS in the year 2000. However, mandatory hallmarking was implemented in 288 districts of the country with effect from June 23, 2021, through the Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery and Gold Artefacts Order, 2022.

The second phase of mandatory hallmarking came into force on June 1, 2022, in 32 districts.

With the introduction of the HUID, the hallmark has three identifiers: the BIS logo, the purity of the article, and the six-digit alphanumeric HUID.

The authority gave jewellers more than a year to clear their stocks of four-digit hallmarked articles. However, the simultaneous sale of two types of hallmarked jewellery was creating confusion among consumers.

“Jewellers had the main argument that they were not able to sell the stocks during the Covid period.

We gave them almost two years to clear their four-digit hallmarked stocks but it was being misused by some of them. It’s time to stop the selling of old hallmarked jewellery,” said Pramod Kumar Tiwari, director general, BIS.

On the question of the short notice, Tiwari said several rounds of consultations were held with stakeholders, including jewellers. The Department of Consumer Affairs held a meeting with them on January 18 this year.

“We prohibited the production of jewellery without the HUID in June 2021 but we allowed jewellers to sell the existing stocks. If the old stocks were so huge, then new jewellery to such a large extent would not have been hallmarked after Covid.”

Moreover, in 2020-21, only 34,647 jewellers were registered in the country. At present it is 153,941. Hence, the majority of the jewellers will not be affected, Tiwari said.

According to the BIS Rules, 2018, in case hallmarked jewellery is found to be less pure than marked-on jewellery, the buyer shall be entitled to compensation, which shall be two times the difference in purity shortage and the testing charges.

According to the BIS, more than 180 million gold articles have been hallmarked since the implementation of mandatory hallmarking. Articles numbering 103 million were hallmarked in 2022-23.

More than 300,000 gold articles are hallmarked with the HUID every day.