Jewellery shops on South Avani Moola Street, South Masi Street and West Masi Street that form the ‘jewellery cluster’ in the city, downed their shutters until 11.30 in the morning on Monday, to show their dissent over the Central government’s decision to make Hallmark Unique Identification Number (HUID) mandatory.
Shopkeepers of more than 1,000 stores that come under the Jewellers and Bullion Merchants Association of Madurai and hundreds of others outside it, stood in front of their closed shops, with placards that opposed the move.
G. Dakshana Murthy, president of the association, said, “In June this year, the government implemented mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery with HUID (Hallmark Unique Identification Number). Gold jewellery does require generalised standards to ensure quality, in the form of Hallmark, but we are opposing the introduction of HUID. As far as southern districts in the State are concerned, a majority of the jewellery shops are small-scale ones. They make plenty of jewellery pieces that are less than 10gm. To get these jewels hallmarked with the HUID is practically difficult, with only seven government-approved hallmark centres available in the city for the more than 1,500 shops. It is taking more than five to six days to get HUID for one set of jewels. Small-scale traders can’t afford to wait for that long as their business ethics are traditional.”
Some jewellers also pointed out that the store had to hire one or more extra staff to organise and put HUID entry for all the jewels.
