Centre notifies third phase of mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery, artefacts

New Delhi: The central government on Friday notified the third phase of mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts, which will cover an additional 55 districts, taking the total number of districts covered under mandatory hallmarking at 343 across the country.

"The third phase of the mandatory hallmarking will cover additional 55 new districts under the mandatory hallmarking system, wherein a hallmarking centre has been setup post implementation of the second phase of the mandatory hallmarking order thereby making the total number of districts covered under mandatory hallmarking as 343," Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution said in a statement.

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) had implemented mandatory hallmarking of gold jewelry and artefacts in 256 districts from 23 June 2021, in the first phase, and an additional 32 districts were included later.

According to the government, more than 400,000 gold articles are being hallmarked everyday in the second phase of the exercise.

"Since the implementation of mandatory hallmarking, the number of registered jewellers have increased from 34,647 to 1, 81,590, while Assaying and Hallmarking Centers (AHCs) have increased from 945 to 1471," the statement said, adding that more than 26 crore articles of gold jewellery have been hallmarked so far.

"Consumers are encouraged to verify the authenticity and purity of the hallmarked gold jewellery items with Hallmark Unique Identification (HUID) number purchased by using ‘verify HUID’ in the BIS Care app," the statement said.

"The number of downloads of BIS Care App have increased from 2.3 lakhs during 2021-22 to 12.4 lakhs in the current FY. Further, more than one crore hits of ‘verify HUID’ in the BIS Care App have been recorded as of date in the span of the last two years," it added.