HALLMARKING OF GOLD JEWELLARY & ARTEFACTS
- February 10, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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HALLMARKING OF GOLD JEWELLARY & ARTEFACTS
TOPIC: Economy
Context- The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Chennai region, has increased drawing of market samples to check the conformity to mandatory hallmarking of gold ornaments and Hallmark Unique ID (HUID) in jewellery.
Concept-
BIS Hallmarking Scheme:
- Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Hallmarking Scheme was launched in 2001 as a voluntary scheme, with the objective of protecting the consumers against adulteration and justifying an obligatory responsibility of the manufacturers to maintain legal standards of fineness of precious metals in India.
- Under this scheme, BIS-certified jewellers can get their jewellery hallmarked from any of the BIS-recognised Assaying and Hallmarking Centres (AHMCs).
- Voluntary hallmarking was a fairly straightforward procedure, which required minimal documentation.
- However, the introduction of HUID (Hallmarking Unique ID) made it possible to validate the hallmarking process. By generating a unique identification number for each article of jewellery, and obligatory submission of reported sampling and testing for purity, complete transparency was achieved in the system.
- This facilitated the creation of a record of the transfer of ownership of jewellery articles, as well as, verification by the end-use customer regarding the authenticity of each unit using the HUID portal even before the purchase
About Hallmarking:
- The Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS), which operates the gold and silver hallmarking scheme in India, defines hallmarking as the “accurate determination and official recording of the proportionate content of precious metal in precious metal articles.”
- So, it is a “guarantee of purity or fineness” of precious metal articles, which started in 2000.
- In India, at present two precious metals namely gold and silver have been brought under the purview of Hallmarking.
- The government in June 2021 announced the phased implementation of mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery.
- Earlier, it was optional for the jewellers and thus only 40% of gold jewellery was getting hallmarked.
Bureau of Indian Standards:
- BIS is the National Standard Body of India for the harmonious development of the activities of standardization, marking and quality certification of goods.
- It is a statutory body under The Bureau of Indian standards (BIS) Act 2016.
- BIS (Hallmarking) Regulations, 2018 under the BIS act calls for Hallmarking of:
- Gold jewellery and gold artefacts
- Silver jewellery and silver artefacts