The Centre on Tuesday said mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts will come into force from June 16 (today) in a phased manner and initially will be implemented in 256 districts. Meanwhile, old jewellery without a hallmark can still be sold to jewellers, clarified a top official of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
As per ANI report, Pramod Kumar Tiwari, DG Bureau of Indian Standards said,“Old jewellery without a hallmark can still be sold to jewellers/jewellery shops, who will then be responsible for hallmarking it or making new jewellery from it by maintaining standards.”
In November 2019, the government had announced that hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts would be made mandatory across the country from January 15, 2021. But the deadline was extended for four months till June 1 and later till June 15 after the jewellers sought more time in view of the pandemic.
Exemption under hallmarking are:
- Jewellers with annual turnover upto Rs 40 lakh will be exempted from mandatory hallmarking.
- Export and re-import of jewelry as per Trade Policy of Government of India - Jewellery for international exhibitions, jewellery for government approved B2B domestic exhibitions will be exempted from mandatory hallmarking.
- Watches, fountain pens and special types of jewellery like Kundan, Polki and Jadau will be exempted from hallmarking.
- Jewellers can continue to buy back old gold jewellery without a hallmark from consumers.
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