Gold hallmarking must from 2021

Chennai: The government will make hallmarking for gold jewellery and artifacts mandatory from January 15, 2021. The Department of Consumer Affairs will issue a notification in this regard by January 15, 2020.

In order to ensure quality of gold jewellery and gold artifacts sold across the stores in the country, government will bring in mandatory hallmarking, Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Friday. A one-year period will be provided for implementation of this decision to enable jewellers clear their existing stock, he said.

However, the stock lying with the consumers will not be subject to hallmarking. Bureau of Indian Standards provides hallmarking of gold jewellery in three grades -- 14 carat, 18 carat and 22 carat. Retailers will have to display prices of these three quality grades at their shops and selling of non-hallmarked jewellery after the deadline will attract a fine of a minimum Rs one lakh and up to five times of the value of article as well as one year jail.

At present, there are 877 assaying and hallmarking centres in 234 district locations and 26,019 jewellers have registered with BIS. The government plans to open hallmarking centres in all districts of the country and register all jewellers during this one year window.

Financial Chronicle on Friday had reported that the government had notified to World Trade Organisation its intention to bring in mandatory hallmarking. However in the notification, the government had not specified the date as to when it would publish this in the official Gazette.

According to Somasundaram PR, managing director, India, World Gold Council, almost 40 to 50 per cent of the gold in the market are hallmarked. “It would take 8 to 12 months to get the rest of the stocks to be hallmarked. Government is likely to keep this in mind while announcing the deadline,’ he had said.