‘Make no exemptions in gold jewellery hallmarking’

Exemptions in hallmarking of gold jewellery would lead to malpractices and the process should therefore be made mandatory for all gold items, said C. Vinod Hayagriv, past chairman of the All India Gem & Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC).

“Hallmarking is a consumer protection initiative. Hence, if India is to be proud of its jewellery, every piece should be quality certified, including the ones made for exhibitions,” Mr. Hayagriv said.

“The only exemption that could be considered is for a 2-gm item, where it will be difficult to put markings,” he added. Hayagriv said the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), rather than having just six purity levels — existing three and three more in the pipeline — should extend it from 10 karatage to 24 to accommodate all types of jewellery, including those of temples and royal family heritage gold.

“Gold is increasingly becoming a fashion statement. The change is not gradual, it is rapid. Hence, purity standards under Hallmarking Act should allow every karatage from 10 kt up to 24 kt,” said Hayagriv, the director of the 150-year-old C Krishniah Chetty Group of Jewellers.

Be it watches, fountain, pens, kundan, polki or jadau, nothing needs to be exempted, rather it should be hallmarked with the karatage and denotation of ‘MPM’, he added.

He also said since hallmarking of gold jewellery was for consumer protection, it should not be used as a tool for business audit.

“Hallmarking is primarily aimed as consumer protection in purity declarations and not as a business audit. Business audits are already available under various other Acts such as Income Tax, GST, Export Import, SEBI, anti-corruption and money laundering. So it should not be used as a business audit,” he said.

Hayagriv said since all stakeholders were not able to come to a consensus on all aspects although there was unanimity in making hallmarking mandatory, the government should not hasten it without everyone coming on board.

Seeking to scrap the provision of hallmarked unit identification (HUID) number on each jewellery item, he said, “Although the industry broadly and unanimously welcomes mandatory hallmarking, it vehemently opposes overheads of tracking every single nose screw to necklace with a unique identification number, which would lead to huge record keeping by both hallmarking agencies and the jeweller fraternity, labs, distributors, craftsman, job work and sub-contractors.”

“This is the main reason for unrest in the jewellery industry with regard to mandatory hallmarking initiative which is being pushed into implementation,” he said.

However, he said each piece of jewellery should have the India Mark.

“To protect the image of Indian jewellery, every piece exported from India should ideally also have hallmarking along with an India Mark. Let there not be an iota of quality dilution, be it in exports to the West or the Africa or the East,” he added.

Stating that resale of old gold jewellery must also be hallmarked, he said it should be at the lower purity level. For example, if the purity is between between 17 and 18 kt, it should be hallmarked as 17 kt.

Courtesy: The Hindu