The central government has announced that the jewellers, starting January 15, 2021, can sell only hallmarked jewellery and artefacts made of 14,18, and 22-carat gold.
The move is to protect the public from buying lower carat gold and prevent them from getting cheated.
The notification to make hallmarking mandatory for gold jewellery from January 15, 2021, will be issued on Thursday by the consumer affairs ministry.
The Consumer Affairs Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan, while announcing the decision on January 14 said that a deadline of one year has been given to the jewellers to register with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and clear their stocks if not hallmarked yet.
If any jeweller violates the above-mentioned rules, then he will be penalised and imprisoned for one year. The penalty imposed may be worth five times the cost of the object (jewellery and artefact).
Gold hallmarking was started since 2000 and was optional till now. Around 40 per cent of gold jewellery is getting hallmarked currently.
Under this plan, jewellers obtain hallmark certificate through any of the 892 assaying and hallmarking centres spread over 234 districts for every piece of the gold item they sell.
As of now, 28,849 jewellers have been registered with BIS under the hallmarking scheme.
Paswan said that the government is aiming to open hallmarking centres in all districts of the country.
He further assured that there will not be any difficulty in exchanging old jewellery as the rule only applies to sales by resellers.
India is the world’s largest importer of gold, with annual imports of 700-800 tonne. According to the World Gold Council data, India’s total gold import declined to 502.9 tonnes during January-September 2019 from 587.3 tonnes in the year-ago period.
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