By IANS
Mumbai : Over 7,000 big and small jewellers from across India have threatened to return their hallmarking licences on Jan 1 if the central government went ahead with a law that makes compulsory the hallmarking of every gold article sold.
The BIS Hallmarking Act, 2006, makes it mandatory to emboss the hallmark of quality on every item of gold jewellery sold in the markets, according to All India Gems & Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF) chairman Ashok Minawala.
Addressing a media conference, Minawala said that the GJF is not opposed to hallmarking. “We are opposed to the licence raj. If this act is implemented without the amendments, the entire industry will suffer heavily,” he said.
Even the central and state governments will lose considerable revenue by way of taxes from the jewellery industry that has an annual turnover of Rs.700 billion, he added.
Among the provisions of the act, any jeweller who sells gold jewellery without the hallmark can be sentenced to a year in jail plus a fine of Rs.5,000.
Terming the act “draconian,” Minawala alleged it would provide an avenue to bureaucrats to harass jewellers.
He pointed out that the GJF has already introduced Trust Mark to ensure the purity of gold in all jewellery. “It is equivalent to the hallmark,” he claimed.
Minawala said it was strange that when the country’s economy was moving towards a de-licensing regime and the government was trying to promote exports, a regressive act like this was being sought to be forced on the industry.
The GJF demanded that the provisions for arrest and fines must be deleted. “If the government still goes ahead with it, the entire industry, which has more than 3,00,000 jewellers all over India, will revolt,” he declared.