BIS to launch awareness drive on hallmarked jewellery among customers

Kolkata: The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) will launch a special drive to create awareness among the consumers to purchase hallmarked jewellery on the occasion of Akshay Tritiya.

A meeting was held between senior BIS officials and some jewellers at the Eastern Regional Office on Tuesday afternoon.

BIS officials Vishnu Gupta, NK Kansara, KK Paul and Kunal Kumar spoke to jewelers Samar De and Subir Sen and others on the issue. The Government of India started BIS Hallmarking Scheme in the year 2000 to protect the consumers against becoming a victim to inferior quality gold or silver. This scheme is presently voluntary but according to the BIS officials, they have appealed for it to become mandatory.

BIS official, Vishnu Gupta, spoke about the precautions that a customer must take into account whilst purchasing hallmark jewellery.

The purchased jewellery must have all the 4 symbols of hallmark, which are the BIS Standard Mark, Purity in carat, Assay Centre's identification mark and jeweller's identification mark. Customer should also be aware that the concerned jewellery shop must have the sign of hallmarked licence on their board prescribed by the Bureau of Indian Standards.

The cash memo provided to them must be checked and a proper invoice should be kept for further verifications, if the hallmarked jewellery is under suspicion.

The hallmarking charges per article for gold are Rs 35 and Rs 25 for silver.

The officials said 21,641 hallmark jewellery license holders are present in India and BIS hopes that this number will increase due to this awareness drive.