Hallmarking of gold of 20, 23, 24 carats to be mandatory in next 2 phases

No bar on households selling non-hallmarked gold anywhere

The Central government will make hallmarking of gold mandatory for the entire country in next two phases for gold jewellery and artefacts of 20, 23 and 24 carats, senior government officials said on Wednesday.

It also clarified that there is no bar on households selling non-hallmarked gold jewellery but jewellers in the districts where hallmarking has been made mandatory from today won’t be allowed to re-sell the same without proper marking, though there is no penalty for not doing so till August.

The Centre said in the first phase, hallmarking has been made mandatory for those districts that have a fully functional assaying and hallmarking centre, while in the second phase those districts that have an assaying centre within 100 kilometers range will be considered and finally, those that don’t have a single centre will be considered in the third phase.

In the meantime, all efforts will be made to boost the network of recognized assaying and hallmarking centres.

Presently, India has around 940 assaying and hallmarking centres that are operating, of which 84 centers have been set up under the government subsidy scheme in various districts.

Last night, the Centre had decided to make hallmarking of gold mandatory in phased manner, first starting with 256 districts in the country for gold jewellery and artefacts. The hallmarking is mandatory for gold jewellery and artefacts for 14, 18 and 22 carats.

However, all jewellers who have an annual turnover of less than Rs 40 lakh have been granted exemption from mandatory hallmarking, which at current rates means that those who sell around 1.5 kilograms of gold every year.

The decision is meant to ensure that small jewellers and those with limited means are not put under any compliance burden, the government clarified.

“The decision to go for phased roll out mandatory hallmarking was taken to ensure that the system is enforced only in those districts or areas that have a fully functional government recognised assaying and hallmarking centre so that jewellers and the market is not unnecessarily put under any pressure,” Pramod Kumar Tiwari, Director General of Bureau of Indian Standard told reporters.

Tiwari said to ensure less inconvenience during transition, no penalty has been imposed till August so that most traders in the identified districts adopt the new system voluntarily.

He said jewellers will be allowed to alter hallmarked jewellry by up to 2 grams of its weight while ensuring the purity to ensure that minor alterations can be made without going through the entire process.

Tiwari said that to ensure compliance of mandatory hallmarking all registration fee has been waived off and made free while so far jewellers had to pay a slab-based registration fee.

In November 2019, the government had announced that hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts would be made mandatory across the country from January 15, 2021.

But the deadline was extended for four months till June 1 and later till June 15 after the jewellers sought more time in view of the Covid pandemic.