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Our Bureau

Kolkata, Dec. 25 If you are planning to shop for gold jewellery on Wednesday evening, you may have to do that in candlelight.

According to the All India Gems and Jewellery Traders Federation (GJF), a lion’s share of the members of the federation and its associate bodies in 15 cities across the country, including the four metros, will observe a “silent protest” against the proposed implementation of the Hallmarking Act by switching off the lights between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. on December 26.

“The gold glitters in light. By switching off the light we would like to send a silent but strong signal to the Government that the mindless implementation of the Act — which we consider is inadequately drafted — would cast a shadow over the huge population dependent on the gold jewellery sector,” Mr Ashok Minawala, Chairman of GJF, told Business Line.

Mr Minawala, however, reminded that though the jewellery trade was always in favour of Hallmarking, it is the Government which decided not to take it into confidence during the entire process of drafting the law and now while implementing it. The end result is: “The law is impractical to follow in Indian conditions.”

Hallmarks are official marks used as a guarantee of purity or fineness of gold jewellery. The Centre has already amended the BIS Hallmarking Act to usher in compulsory hallmarking. To start with, the Act will be implemented in four metros — having roughly 35,000 outlets or traders — beginning January 1, 2008.

The traders are primarily protesting against compulsory licensing for retailers, which revives the shadow of the erstwhile Gold Control Act; implementing the Act without setting up adequate testing centres; not offering exemptions; the process of hallmarking which is adopted based on the manufacturing practices followed in the West; and excessive penal provisions without any scope of appeal.

“The Act is going to be implemented with only 25 testing centres while as per our assessment the four metros need 500 testing centres. Imagine a centre like Kolkata — which is India’s major supplier of gold jewellery — is offered merely three testing facilities for approximately 4,000 jewellers. It’s impractical,” Mr Minawala says.

Similarly, the quality assurance process should take care of the fact that jewelleries are mostly handmade in India vis-À-vis the machine-made products in the West. Naturally, implementation of a qualification process adopted from the UK will have fatal impact on the millions of artisans in States like Bengal.

“The worst part is, despite our best attempts the Government has so far not taken us into confidence. So much so that we are denied even an appointment with the Union Consumer Affairs Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar,” he said.

More Stories on : Standards & Benchmarks | Gems & Jewellery | Gold & Silver

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