Published
Nov 23, 2017
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Consumer Affairs Minister announces 24 karat hallmarking for jewellery

Published
Nov 23, 2017

On November 23, Ram Vilas Paswan, the Consumer Affairs Minister, instructed the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to roll out compulsory hallmarking for 24 karat jewellery.

24 karat jewellery should soon have compulsory hallmarking - VK Jewellers- Facebook


Paswan announced that the Indian Government is currently working to strengthen infrastructure such as testing labs that will allow them to properly roll out compulsory gold hallmarking for both jewellery and gold bars. Standards have already been set for hallmarking of 14, 18, and 22 karat gold and now those standards will be extended to 24 karat gold. In order to set hallmarking standards for 24 karat gold, the BIS’s General Director Surina Rajan stated that a scientific analysis will be undertaken to confirm that this is indeed possible and, following that, the standards will be set.

“Earlier, jewellery could not be made from 24 carat gold. Now it is possible to make with the sophisticated technology available abroad. There is a demand to have standards for this category also,” said Paswan. One of the challenges is that most hallmarking centres are privately owned and their current numbers are too few to handle the coming demand and so more need to be set up.

Another challenge is that the performance of the LED bulbs used in the process is not properly monitored. Rajan, who explained the situation, said: “We have discussed the matter with the commerce ministry to make performance mandatory for LED bulbs. When both safety and performance standards are made mandatory, the product will be checked on both the parameters and will be allowed to sell in the market. This will be done soon.” Despite needing to tie up some loose ends, gold hallmarking for four purity grades should therefore be rolled out soon which will helf to organise the jewellery market in India and foster more consumer trust.

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