Jewellery body demands more assaying centres

The Gem and Jewellery Federation (GJF), the national body for the jewellry trade in the country, demands that the government should provide proper infrastructure for the compulsory hallmarking in the form of assaying centres in the country.

Currently, the number of centres is highly inadequate for supporting and sustaining any mandatory hallmarking.

As against the demand of 3,000 centres, there are only about 75 hallmarking centres operational in the country, while in the northern region (excluding Delhi) there is just one.

It is worth noting that from January 1, 2008, the government has decided to make it mandatory for gold to be hallmarked by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Initially, the move will be implemented in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai and will be spread across the country in phases.

In an interaction with Business Standard, GJF, Director Anil Talwar said: " There are only 25 hallmarking centres in the four metros (Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai and Chennai) against an estimated requirement of 500 centres."

"The legislation should not to be enforced unless adequate infrastructure facilities are made available by the central government. The existing centres are also not close to any of the jewellry clusters even in big cities, thereby making hallmarking a tedious effort, " he added.

So far the northern region is concerned, there is only one centre in Ludhiana (Punjab). However sources in the BIS informed that there were proposals to set up more centres across the country.

According to industry figures, India consumes 800 tonnes of gold on an average each year. With a BIS survey finding almost 90 per cent samples from unlicensed jewellers to be short of purity, with impurity in the yellow metal as high as 44.66 per cent in some cases, and an average shortage of 13.5 per cent, it translates to short charging from the customer to the tune of Rs 8,000 crore.

So ultimately it is the consumer who is at a loss as he does not have any method to ascertain the purity of the gold he buys from a non-licensed jeweller.

The BIS hallmark (916 for 22 carat gold purity) provides a third party assurance to the customer and protection against any victimisation on account of irregular gold quality or purity.