What is gold hallmarking?

The Government has called for mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery in the market from June 1, 2021.

Certifying the purity of gold

The process of certifying the purity of gold is known as hallmarking. A hallmark is an official mark embossed on a piece of jewellery to guarantee the purity of the precious metal in it. Hallmarking gold jewellery instills confidence in the mind of the buyer. Let’s assume you are buying hallmark 22-karat gold jewellery. Do you know what it means? It means what you are purchasing has 22/24 parts gold, nothing more nothing less. This will ensure that you get the correct value of gold for the money you pay.

At present, gold hallmarking is voluntary. When hallmarking becomes mandatory, it would protect buyers against lower caratage and adulteration, and ensure that they got the purity as marked on the jewellery and are not cheated.

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is a government body that certifies the purity of the gold in the jewellery sold in the country. When a piece of jewellery conforms to a set of standards laid down by the BIS, it is awarded the BIS mark. The BIS logo on the jewellery indicates its purity has been verified. There are BIS-recognised Assaying & Hallmarking (A&H) Centres across the country to test jewellery and hallmarking it.

Gold of different karatage

24-karat gold is considered to be the purest form of gold. As it is soft, it does not lend itself to making ornaments. Other metals such as zinc, silver, and copper are added to strengthen gold to make jewellery. That’s the reason ornamental gold is categorized as 22-, 18- and 14-karat, which means 22-karat jewellery has 22/24 parts gold and 18-karat has 18/24 parts gold and the rest is a mixture of other metals.

What do the new rules say?

In 2019, the government had announced that mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery would come into force on January 15, 2021, but was postponed to June due to the pandemic. According to the new rules, jewellers need to register themselves with the BIS. They can sell gold ornaments only in three variants – 22, 18 and 14 karat from June 1. They are prohibited from holding non-hallmarked jewellery. If jewellery or an artifact made of 22-18- and 14-karat gold is sold without the BIS hallmark, the jeweler could be penalized five times the cost of the object or imprisoned up to one year. It is said that the BIS has rolled out a host of reforms to make compliance easier. As an incentive to start-ups, the BIS has reduced the minimum marking fee by 50%. (According to the BIS site, it costs Rs. 35 plus taxes to hallmark a gold ornament.)

Meanwhile, jewellers citing their inability to get the old stock cleared or get all the jewellery pieces hallmarked on account of the pandemic, want the existing deadline to be extended to the start of 2022.

Picture Credit : Google

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