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Jewellers to go on strike on Aug 23 over 'arbitrary' hallmarking norms
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SME Times News Bureau | 20 Aug, 2021
Jewellers across India will go on strike on August 23 against
"arbitrarily" implemented mandatory hallmarking process in the country
by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
The strike has been
called by the National Task Force for Hallmarking, formed by 350
associations and federations representing all four zones of the entire
gems and jewellery industry. The objective of this committee is to
ensure a smooth implementation of mandatory hallmarking across the
country, said a statement by the task force on Friday.
There have
been two committees formed and almost 10 meetings held but no relief
has yet been offered in writing by the BIS or the Ministry of Corporate
Affairs, it said, adding that BIS, being a standards and quality
assurance institution, is playing the role of a "revenue department"
with gems and jewellery industry becoming a very soft target for them.
"Jewellers
have waited for almost two months with complications piling up and
impractical laws resulting in industry collapse," the statement said.
Ashok
Minawala, member of the National Task Force on Hallmarking, noted that
jewellers have always welcomed hallmarking, but they cannot accept the
new HUID (Hallmarking Unique ID) as it has nothing to do with the purity
of gold.
"The new HUID is a 6-digit code, which BIS feels will
improve gold purity, but BIS cannot prove even one element of how it can
improve the purity, apart from it being just a tracking mechanism," he
said.
"The consumer wants perfect quality of gold jewellery which
we are happy to deliver. The new process has been made a 'destructive
process' that damages our jewellery being hallmarked," said Minawala,
who is also a former Chairman of the All India Gem and Jewellery
Domestic Council.
He was of the view that the element of
cancellation of registration, penal provisions, search and seizure will
ultimately bring "Inspector Raaj" in the industry.
Dinesh Jain,
member of the task force, noted that hallmarking has been made mandatory
in 256 districts from June 16, 2021 and it is estimated that yearly,
almost 10-12 crore pieces are manufactured in India.
In addition,
existing stock of almost 6-7 crore pieces are yet to be hallmarked, he
said, adding that it takes the total count of pieces to be hallmarked in
a year to almost 16-18 crore pieces.
"Current speed and capacity
of hallmarking centres is about 2 lakh pieces per day, at this speed it
will take almost 800-900 days or equivalent to 3-4 years to mark this
years' production," Jain said.
Jain, who is also the Director,
GJC and GJSCI, said that the new marking system -- HUID -- is taking
almost 5 to 10 days to hallmark the products, resulting into a complete
bottleneck and the industry is on standstill.
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