Govt initiates process to make gold hallmarking mandatory

Kolkata: The centre has revived its intention to make hallmarking mandatory for gold jewellery and plans to notify the regulation in WTO in a week time, a top official said.

Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Director General Surina Rajan, however, assured the jewellery traders that the process would be done in consultation with all stakeholders.

"The (central) government once again intends to make hallmarking of gold jewellery mandatory in the country. A notification to WTO is expected in a week time to seek comments," she told PTI.

India being a signatory to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), it is required to notify the WTO before introducing any mandatory regulation, she said.

Rajan was in the city on Monday to address an awareness event on standards and quality assurance through hallmarking, organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce.

She said digitisation of hallmarking would be a "crucial component for making it mandatory".

"We have engaged IIT-Mumbai to execute the digitisation programme for gold hallmarking and it will take about a year to complete the system," Rajan said.

The initiative will connect all hallmarking centres with BIS control and a hallmarking code will be generated only after completion of a fool-proof system, she explained.

Currently, there are about 800 hallmarking centres across the country and only 40 per cent of jewellery is hallmarked.

Rajan also assured jewellery sector that barring any major criminal conspiracy, the BIS does not want to exercise its authority to arrest, search and seizures.