INDORE: Mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts has come into force in eight districts of Madhya Pradesh in the first phase implementation. Though just around 20% jewellers in these districts have taken the hallmarking certificates, prompting the association of jewellers to demand better infrastructure and hallmarking centres in every districts.
Gold hallmarking, a certification of purity of the yellow metal, has come into force from June 16 in Indore, Bhopal, Dewas, Jabalpur, Rewa, Satna, Gwalior and Ratlam, in the first phase.
Partha Sarathi Mandal, scientist at the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Indore said, “Hallmarking is implemented in eight districts of MP and many more will be included in a phased manner. Over 1,400 jewellers in these eight districts have taken the licences so far and these numbers are being updated on a daily basis.”
The eight districts have a total of 18 hallmarking centres with three each in Bhopal and Gwalior and four in Indore.
Jewellers have raised worries over lack of infrastructure in the state to support the mandatory hallmarking of gold and demanded that hallmarking centres be opened in every district to avoid travelling to other cities for getting jewellery hallmarked. They said, a piece of jewellery takes around 10 minutes to get hallmarked.
According to the association, the eight districts where hallmarking is implemented has around 7,000 jewellers. Jewellers with an annual turnover of upto Rs40 lakh will be exempted from mandatory hall marking.
