NEW DELHI: On Wednesday, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has made the Hallmarking of Gold mandatory. Pramod Kumar Tiwari, Director General, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) addressed a virtual press conference and briefed the media persons about the Mandatory Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery scheme which has come into force from June 16, 2021.
DG, BIS while addressing the facets of Mandatory Hallmarking shared that mandatory hallmarking has initially started with 256 districts of the country, which have Assaying and hallmarking centres. He further added that Jewellers with annual turnover upto Rs. 40 lakh will be exempted from mandatory Hallmarking.
Export and re-import of jewellery as per Trade Policy of Government of India – Jewellery for international exhibitions, jewellery for government approved B2B domestic exhibitions will also be exempted from mandatory Hallmarking. Watches, fountain pens and special types of jewellery viz. Kundan, Polki and Jadau will be exempted from Hall Marking.
He further stated that the registration of jewellers will be one-time and there will be no fees will be charged from jewellers for registration. Any manufacturer, importer, wholesaler, distributor, or retailer engaged in selling precious metal articles have to mandatorily get registered with BIS.
However, artisans or manufacturers who are manufacturing the gold jewellery on job work basis for the jewellers and are not directly related to sale to anyone in the chain are exempted for registration.
The 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 responsibility of purity on the jeweller, DG BIS added.
He further added that there has always been a high demand from jewelers to increase the grades of gold purity for hallmarking. Considering this, gold of Additional carats i.e., 20, 23 and 24 will also be allowed for Hallmarking.
It was clarified that old unhallmarked jewellery available in households can be sold to jewellers. Tiwari added that Jewellers can continue to buy back old gold jewellery without hallmark from consumer and in order to give adequate time to the manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of Gold Jewellery, there would be No penalties till August end.