Imagine the plight of the person who loses out all his hard earned money by buying gold and investing in it. If you think this is a hypothetical situation built for the premise of this blog piece, then we say you need a reality check. Hundreds of people in India are scammed by jewelers all over in the pretext of selling pure gold while what they receive is gold which is low in its fineness and karat. Since gold is an asset that holds sentimental value In Indian households and is often passed as heirlooms, this fraud is discovered often years later. Thus, herein lies the problem for the people then whom to trust while buying gold.
The government of India in order to curb the fraudulent practices of the gold dealers and provide respite to the common man has made hallmarking and BIS certification compulsory for all jewelers. Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan while addressing the questions on this to the media remarked that the purpose of making hallmarking mandatory for gold jeweler and artifacts is to ensure the consumer’s best interests while buying gold ornaments and the common man is not gullied of his savings in the name of buying pure gold by jewelers.
This move by the government is a landmark decision and has set a precedent for the industry. The government has allowed a year’s time to the jewelers to get themselves registered with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and ensure that they clear their existing stock before January 15, 2021, as all jewelry sold post this date will require hallmarking
To simply put Hallmarking is the certification of the jewelry to precisely indicator the content of the metal in the ornaments made. It is widely known that gold with a purity of 99.999 is the purest form available and is extremely malleable at this state. To make gold jewelry, the metal has to be converted into an alloy form with zinc or silver to ensure that the jewelry has a long-lasting structure.
The government’s new rule has passed certain ordinances and let’s takes a look at them:
1) Gold will be divided into three categories with respect to its carat and hallmarking will be done accordingly, mainly -14 carat, 18 carat and 22 carat.
2) Charges to be paid for the hallmark jewelry have been notified on the BIS website. As per the website, the minimum charge to be paid for a piece of jewelry is 200 Rs which is exclusive of tax.
3)To avoid fraudulent practices and ensure the customer isn’t cheated on account of purity and hallmark, it is mandatory for gold jewelry to have four prevalent marks assay center’s name (the laboratory where the gold is tested for its purity has been asked to put their logo too on the jewelry), BIS mark, carat purity mentioned and jewelers’ identification mark (the jeweler in this can either be a small store retailer or a high-end manufacturer but the logo of the company has been made compulsory for them too).
This move has been widely accepted and received with much adulation from the industry as it puts regulation in place and eliminates the cronies. This will also allow expansion of the industry and ensure the sector to be organized PAN India.

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