New Delhi, Jan 14 (UNI) Union Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday asserted that Gold hallmarking being made mandatory to ensure consumers are not cheated and they are better informed about purity and corruption is removed.
'The purpose of making hallmarking mandatory for Gold Jewelry and Artefacts is to ensure that consumers are not cheated while buying gold ornaments and get the purity as marked on the ornaments, they are better informed about the purity of Gold which will now be in only 3 caratage i e 14, 18 and 22 and corruption is removed,' said Mr Paswan at a press conference here.
Notification regarding this will be issued by the Department of Consumer Affairs providing a period of one year for implementation i e till January, 2021.
Explaining the reasons for the one-year implementation period, Mr Paswan said that this will ensure that Jewelers registration process can be completed and jewelers and retailers get time for clearing their old or existing stock and also so that additional Assaying and Hallmarking centres can be set up by private entrepreneurs at various locations where demand arises and priority will be given to districts where such centres are not present.
As on December 31, 2019, there are 892 Assaying and Hallmarking centres spread in 234 District locations across the country and so far 28,849 jewelers have been registered by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
BIS (Hallmarking) Regulations, 2018 were notified w e f June 14, 2018.
BIS is running a hallmarking scheme for gold jewelry since April 2000. The BIS Act 2016 has enabling provisions under Section 14 and Section 16 for mandatory hallmarking of Gold jewellery and artefacts 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.
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