Government declared gold hallmarking mandatory

The central government on Wednesday has declared that t it has made hallmarking of gold mandatory. The order from the ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution came into effect immediately.

The director-general of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Pramod Kumar Tiwari conducted a press conference yesterday and stated hallmark shall be done at the first point of sale which may be manufacturer, whole-seller, distributor or retailer. Alteration in the hallmarked jewellery up to 2 grams of increase or decrease to be allowed with the responsibility of purity on the jeweller.

The Executive Director of Kalyan Jewellers Ramesh Kalyanaraman in an interview with a leading daily has quoted, “We welcome the government’s decision to implement mandatory BIS hallmarking for jewellers across the country. Mandatory hallmarking will standardize the purity of gold jewellery and take the industry a long way towards being more structured as well as further push the ongoing shift of business and customers from the unorganized to the organized jewellery segment,”