personal finance

Hallmarking of gold jewellery mandatory from today. Here's what you need to know


From today, i.e., January 15, it has become mandatory for all jewellers to hallmark gold jewellery. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution issued a notification on January 14 stating that it will give a year’s time to jewellers and retailers to register themselves with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and clear their old stock.

The Union Consumer Affairs Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan said, “The purpose of making hallmarking mandatory for Gold Jewelry and Artefacts is to ensure that consumers are not cheated while buying gold ornaments and get the purity as marked on the ornaments, they are better informed about the purity of Gold which will now be in only 3 caratage i.e. 14, 18 and 22 and corruption is removed.”

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Read the full press release here)

So, from January 15, 2021, no jeweller will be allowed to sell any kind of gold ornaments without hallmarking.

What is hallmarking?

BIS, a government body, certifies the purity of gold bought by you. The process of certifying the purity of gold is called hallmarking. According to the BIS website, there are two principle objectives of the hallmarking scheme:

  • To protect the public against adulteration
  • To obligate manufacturers to maintain legal standards of fineness/purity

There are four components that one should look for on the hallmarked gold jewellery to ensure the purity of gold:

  1. BIS Mark;
  2. Purity in Karat and fineness;
  3. Assaying and Hallmarking Centre’s identification mark/number;
  4. Jeweller’s Identification mark/number

Here is a look at each of these components in detail.

1. BIS Mark

Gold jewellery hallmarked by BIS will have the BIS logo indicating that its purity is verified in one of its licensed laboratories. According to the BIS website, it is the only agency in India approved by the government for hallmarking gold articles of any kind to ensure its purity.

How to check the purity of gold

The four components to look for

23 Oct, 2019

Most of us visit jewellery stores to buy gold jewellery and ornaments at this time of the year, around Dhanteras and Diwali. One can now buy gold jewellery online as well. But how do you check if the gold that you have purchased is pure? For this, the Bureau of Indian Standards, (BIS) certifies the purity of gold by a process called hallmarking.According to BIS, there are four components that one should look for on the hallmarked gold jewellery to ensure its purity. These are as follows.

However, BIS hallmarking scheme is voluntary, not all jewellers offer hallmarked BIS jewellery. Some jewellers offer their in-house hallmarking of jewellery which is not verified by the BIS. Therefore, before buying gold jewellery, you must check with the jeweller if they offer BIS hallmarking.

2. Purity in Karat and fineness

Purity of gold is indicated in two ways: Karat (denoted as KT) and fineness number. When purity of gold is measured in Karat, 24KT is considered the purest form of gold. But 24KT gold is considered too soft to be converted into any jewellery or ornament. Other metals such as silver and zinc are added to gold to convert it into jewellery.

Fineness number is another way of measuring the purity of gold. It is measured in purity in parts per thousand.

According to the BIS website, effective from January 1, 2017, hallmarking of gold is done only for three levels of purity, i.e., Karats. These are as follows:

22K916 Corresponding to 22 Karat
18K750 Corresponding to 18 Karat
14K585 Corresponding to 14 Karat

The fineness number and BIS hallmark on the piece of jewellery indicate that BIS has certified it to be of the fineness level/purity that is embossed on it as part of the hallmark.

3. Assaying and hallmarking centre’s mark/number

The laboratory where your gold jewellery is assessed to check its purity is also required to put their logo on the jewellery. Only licensed laboratories of BIS can check the purity of gold. One can check if the hallmarking centre is licensed by BIS or not on their website. Click here to check the logo of the hallmarking centre on your jewellery.

Four signs of gold purity

hallmark

Source: BIS website

4. Jeweller’s identification mark

The jewellery shop from where you are buying your gold jewellery will also put its identification mark. This mark can be of a BIS certified jeweller or jewellery manufacturer.

There is a list on the BIS website of jewellers that are certified by it.
The list can be accessed here.

For gold jewellery hallmarked till 31 December, 2016

If you have bought gold on or before 31 December, 2016, then there is an additional component that is hallmarked on the gold. Before revising the rules, effective from 1 January, 2017, BIS hallmarking scheme had five components.

The fifth component was the year of marking. It was a code letter representing the year of hallmarking of jewellery which is decided by BIS. For example, Letter ‘A’ was used for year 2000 and ‘J’ for year 2008.

Points to remember

  • There are charges that have to be paid to get the jewellery hallmarked. As per the BIS website, Rs 35 plus taxes is charged per gold item. For a consignment, a minimum of Rs 200 plus taxes is charged.
  • Hallmarking is not done instantly. It may take approximately five to six hours to get the purity of gold checked before it is hallmarked.
  • If you have a complaint regarding your hallmarked jewellery, you can contact BIS by sending an email to hallmarking@bis.org.in or by calling them at 011-23234223





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