GJF not in favour of BIS’s proposed certicards

Says the hallmarking centres and processes need to be fine tuned
Haresh Soni, Chairman, GJF
Haresh Soni, Chairman, GJF

The All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF) expressed not being in favour of the proposed certicard by the national standards body Bureau of Indian Standards, in which all jewellery retailers in India’s metro cities are to be issued the certoicard for every piece of jewellery sold by them.

In a letter written to Hon. Minister of Consumer Affairs Mr. KV Thomas, GJF’s Chairman Mr. Haresh Soni called the proposed BIS Hallmarking move ‘cumbersome’, ‘impractical’, ‘expensive’ and ‘time consuming’ and earnestly requested the policy makers to take the jewellery industry into confidence while framing rules or changing them. Although the GJF has always supported BIS initiatives in improving the Hallmarking system in India, Mr. Haresh Soni, Chairman, GJF, said, “GJF has always cooperated with BIS but the proposed move to make jewellers in metros issue a certicard with each piece of jewellery along with its photograph and unique identification mark is highly unviable and not customer-friendly. The cost of each piece of jewellery will increase due to the additional cost burden of Rs. 125-150 for issuing one certicard. In case of mass produced jewellery, it is impossible to hallmark each piece of jewellery and issue certicard for each one of them.”

He also noted that “It is practically an uphill task for the jeweller to maintain thousands of such certificates in jewellery stores and retrieve the same at the time of delivery of the product to the customer. This process will in fact discourage the jewellers to avoid hallmarking jewellery as it is expensive and these Centres may also not follow the standard procedures, which may lead to unhealthy practices. This will put additional burden of vigilance on BIS”. He further added that “many Hallmarking Centres do not have the facility of Hallmarking but have been allotted licence and marking jewellery at their free will. In some case, A&H licence has been issued to jewellers, which will defeat the cause and purpose behind Hallmarking.” The GJF Chairman also pointed out to the Minister that BIS had formed two Committees to improve the Hallmarking system in the country but the first meeting of the Committees were held separately on two different dates. Instead he suggested that the two BIS Committees should be merged and a joint meeting held for understanding the real picture. Also, Hallmarking Centres should reject those jewellery pieces found of below standard.

Bachchraj Bamalwa, Director & ex-Chairman of GJF noted that why was the certification being restricted to metros, as certificates will help bring trust. He added, “Metros constitute 25-30 per cent of jewellery sales. Attempts to sell even legitimate jewellery items bought elsewhere will be difficult even in consumers’ urgent need of money. Hence, many consumers’ emergency will be affected badly despite having adequate jewellery wealth in store”.

The GJF believes that the need is more for making hallmarking centres and processes which should be fine tuned and that the Hon. Consumer Affairs Minister take the hallmarking process in India to the next level by making it mandatory for all hallmarking centres to be enable compliant so that a piece of jewellery hallmarked in India can be accepted by any other country in the world’. The GJF noted that ‘jewellers and the industry can only survive if consumers are protected and we are determined to protect the consumers’. GJF recently unveiled the Trust Mark Model (TMM), for business growth.


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