HUID: India's quest for GOLD PURITY EXCELLENCE

The Indian gold jewellery sector’s journey towards hallmarking has been long, slow and bumpy. Although voluntary hallmarking became available in April 2000, compromised gold was still widely sold in the market — a fact of which neither public nor government was ignorant. In June 2021, however, hallmarking became mandatory. Manufacturers, jewellers and consumers now must quickly come to grips with the new purity norms, which juxtapose a unique six-digit ID for each item with the utterly inadequate state of India’s hallmarking infrastructure. The Retail Jeweller weighs the pros and cons of this sharp turn in the current, mid pandemic moment, when the gems and jewellery industry is more dependent than ever on gold sales.

- Soma Bhatta

The Indian jewellery industry is not new to hallmarking. What was, however, a voluntary practice now has been imposed by fiat. The central government has made it mandatory, from 16 June 2021, for jewellers to register for a hallmark unique identification number (HUID). It is a pivotal moment.

Gems and jewellery is one of the largest sectors of the Indian economy. Despite the sector’s size and importance, it remains predominantly informal. Just 80,000 jewellers are hallmarked (at the time of going to print), so far and what is even more astonishing is that this small number is nearly 50 per cent higher than it was before the government-mandated hallmarking.

Among non-hallmarked jewellers, there is a palpable sense of fear. The government has given them until the end of August to comply with the new rule, failing which a penalty is to be imposed. Regardless of this deadline, action will be taken on consumer complaints.

To balance speed with step-by-step application, the government has decided to proceed in a phased manner across the country. In phase one, mandatory hallmarking comes into force in 256 districts (out of 718), covering 14-, 18-, 20-, 22-, 23- and 24-carat gold jewellery and artefacts. Despite this staggered implementation, the move is beginning to upset the industry.

GRADING BIS

Jewellers already face serious challenges caused or exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Now they face the added risk of an investigating officer coming to clamp down on their business if there is a discrepancy in the purity level. The registrar can even cancel the jeweller’s licence for noncooperation.