WEB DESK
The hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts will now be mandatory. Briefingmedia in New Delhi today, Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswansaid that the government will issue a notification tomorrow regarding mandatory hallmarking.
He said, after the issuance the notification, the jewellers willget one year time till 15th of January 2021 to implement the order. He said,now the Hallmarked Gold Jewellery will be available in three grades of 14Carat, 18 Carat and 22 Carat.
Mr Paswan said, the new system will weed out anomalies and corruption in thesystem of manufacturing of jewellery and hallmarking will protect the interestof the consumers.
Mr Paswan said, there are 892 Assaying and Hallmarking Centres are operationalin 234 Districts of the country. He said, the focus will be to open more suchCentres in the country in the next one year. Under it, all the Jewellers willhave to register with Bureau of Indian Standards and over 28 thousand jewellershave already registered with it.
He said, there is also a provision of penalaction in case of violation of the order. Anybody found violating theprovision, will have to pay a minimum fine of Rs 1 lakh or 5 times the price ofthe article.