Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery: A tale of two districts

financialexpress.com:

It is common knowledge that India is one of the highest consumers of gold, particularly in the form of jewellery. Since gold in its raw form is too delicate, it is always alloyed with some other metal for the purpose of jewellery making. This alloying of gold also makes the public extremely vulnerable to excessive adulteration which cannot be easily detected. Adulteration of gold is also not a new subject. Consumers are well aware of such pitfalls. However, they have no option other than trusting the words of a jeweller.

To instil this trust, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Standing Committee on Gold and Precious Metals identified Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) in the year 2000 as the sole agency to operate the Hallmarking Scheme in India and entrusted BIS with the task of implementing the hallmarking scheme to protect consumers against cheating, develop export competitiveness and make India a leading market for gold jewellery in the world. 

Fast forward to 2018, vide S.O. 2421 dated 14.06.2018 (‘2018 Notification’) and by powers conferred by Section 14(1) of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016 (‘BIS Act’), the Central Government notified Gold jewellery and gold artefacts (Gold Jewellery) to be hallmarked. In furtherance of this Notification, the Central Government, vide S.O. 205(E) dated 15.01.2020 issued the Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery and Gold Artefacts Order, 2020 (‘2020 Order’). As per the 2020 Order, Gold Jewellery notified in the 2018 Notification shall be sold only by registered jewellers through certified sales outlets; after fulfilling the terms and conditions of certificate of registration as specified in Regulation 5 of the BIS (Hallmarking) Regulations, 2018; such Gold Jewellery shall conform to IS