The government has once again intended to make hallmarking of gold jewellery mandatory in the country and planning to notify the regulation in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in a week time. India being a signatory to the WTO, it is required to notify the WTO before introducing any mandatory regulation.
Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Director General Surina Rajan has assured the jewellery traders that the process would be done in consultation with all stakeholders. She said digitisation of hallmarking would be a ‘crucial component for making it mandatory’. She said ‘We have engaged IIT-Mumbai to execute the digitisation programme for gold hallmarking and it will take about a year to complete the system’.
She elaborated that the initiative will connect all hallmarking centres with BIS control and a hallmarking code will be generated only after completion of a fool-proof system. Currently, there are about 800 hallmarking centres across the country and only 40 per cent of jewellery is hallmarked. Rajan also assured jewellery sector that barring any major criminal conspiracy, the BIS does not want to exercise its authority to arrest, search and seizures.