Convinced ministry to remove tracking from HUID: Jewellers

Jewellers, who were up in arms against the government over hallmarking unique ID (HUID) system for gold ornaments, now claim they have convinced the ministry of consumer affairs for deleting the most contentious part of the rule. The jewellers say the ministry has agreed to remove tracking mechanism from hallmarking. Although, there has been no official notification so far.

After HUID was brought in recently, jewellers had gone on one-day strike against it last week and also threatened to intensify the agitation if their demand was not met. A meeting was held between the trade leaders and Union minister for consumer affairs Piyush Goyal on Saturday.

“The ministry has agreed to do away with the tracking mechanism in HUID,” said Nitin Khandelwal, a member of government-appointment expert committee on HUID. He was also part of the negotiations with the ministry. After the meeting, Gems and Jewellery Council (GJC), a trade association, also released a note spelling out the points discussed and agreed upon.

One of the points reads, “The transfer of data on jewellers account on Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) portal will be deactivated soon.”

Khandelwal said this means that the data uploaded on the BIS portal at the time of hallmarking will not be transferable anywhere else. “HUID calls for giving a unique numPlease ber to each gold ornament, based on which, the entire transaction can be tracked. The number generated at the time of hallmarking can trace the ornament till the customer’s end. Details of the buyer are also available,” said Khandelwal.

He said the jewellers have been able to convince the ministry that tracking would lead to unnecessary policing. Even buyers would not like to have their details mentioned on the portal. It has been assured that the feature would be removed, claimed Khandelwal.

Sources said the jewellers were also concerned that tracking could have given a chance to tax agencies for raising queries leading to inspector raj. “Sometimes, there is a mismatch due to genuine business reasons. For example, a customer eventually alters the design which reduces the weight. Under the HUID system, even the taxmen could have raised a question about the difference in weight and sought details about where the remaining gold was sold,” said sources.

Hallmarking is a system of certifying that a particular gold ornament has the same weight and purity as claimed by the jeweller.

Prior to HUID, gold in terms of weight could be hallmarked in batches. Under HUID, every individual ornament has to be hallmarked with a unique ID generated for it.

Rajesh Rokde from Nagpur Sarafa Association said, “The association members would continue to press the demands for further easing the law. Provisions of imprisonment and cancellation of licence should also be removed.”

Courtesy: Times of India