Only 3 purity marks for gold jewellery: Govt.

With the introduction of BIS Act 2016, the government is likely to allow only 22k, 18k and 14k gold jewellery to be sold by jewellers in its hallmark logo instead of purity marks such as 916 and 875.

The move is expected to enable customers to understand easily the purity of gold, which they purchase.

“An announcement in this regard is expected to be very soon,” according to an official familiar with the development.

“Hereafter, no jeweller will be allowed to sell 21k gold with a price of 22k gold jewellery. The government wanted to curtail such practices by jewellers and planning to introduce only 22k, 18k and 14k gold jewellery,” he added.

The government plans to change jewellers’ logo also along with the hallmark logo.

“Ït is difficult to identify jewellers currently, which are having codes like AJ, KJ and MJ. Instead of these jewellery codes, alpha numeric codes which are given for the jewellers’ licenses would be hallmarked to identify the shop owner,” the official said.

The jeweller has to provide a “plain marking area” with a width of one mm and length of 10 mm.

Jewellery would not be allowed to hallmark without this marking strip of stipulated size. Earlier it was difficult for customers to identify the hall marked area.

However, mandatory hallmarking will be enforced only on jewellery weighs more than two gms.