By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: The third phase of the mandatory hallmarking vide Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery and Gold Artefacts (Third Amendment) Order, 2023 comes into force from September 8, 2023.
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. The State wise list of newly added 55 districts under the mandatory hallmarking is available on the website of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), www.bis.gov.in under hallmarking section.
BIS has been successful in implementation of Mandatory Hallmarking in 256 districts of the country with effect from 23 June 2021, in the first phase and in the additional 32 districts with effect from 04 April 2022, in second phase wherein more than 4 lakh gold articles are being hallmarked with HUID every day.
Since the implementation of mandatory hallmarking, 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. More than 26 crore articles of gold jewellery have been hallmarked with HUID so far.
Consumers are encouraged to verify the authenticity and purity of the hallmarked gold jewellery items with HUID number purchased by using ‘verify HUID’ in BIS Care app which can be downloaded from the play store.
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 last 2 years.
