BHOPAL: Sarafa market, which remained closed for several months during lockdown, wore a deserted look again on Monday in Bhopal. Shutters were down, slogans were raised by the jewellers in protest against certain provisions of the new rules regarding hallmark unique identification (HUID). Over 2000 shops in the city were closed as jewellers sat on a dharna in New Market, to show solidarity with jewellers across the country staging similar protests.
Demanding the Centre to roll back the new rules as it may bring back the “inspector raj”, they claimed that new provisions are “impractical and can not be implemented as 95% people involved in the trade do not have infrastructure to implement it.” They said, " We are not against hallmarking but some of its provisions".
“The new rules should not be used for punishing people but to regulate the trade”, said Navneet Agrawal, spokesman of Bhopal Sarafa Mahasangh. He said, the new hallmarking rules have a provision of HUID that means that every piece of jewellery will have unique identification. Not only this, it should not only be recorded in the books of the jewellers but also uploaded in the system of the Hallmark centre and that of the government. “We protest against this. This will increase our workload. We do not have the infrastructure to execute this. And the non-compliance will lead to punishment,” he lamented.
He said, provisions like stock declaration are unsafe and impractical. “They want us to upload our stock on the government system. Making public our stock will lead to safety issues”, he added.
Gold hallmarking has become mandatory from June 16, 2021, the Union ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution had announced it earlier this year.
So far, the new rules have been implemented in 256 districts of the country including 7 districts of MP. They include Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Satna .
