Bureau of Indian Standards organised a meeting with consumer organisations, representatives of jewellers associations and assaying & hallmarking centres. Sunil Soni, IAS, DG, BIS in his address stressed that the prime objective of organising this programme was to bring out changes in the hallmarking scheme of BIS in order to protect the interests of the consumers. He added that for improving reliability, necessary changes have been introduced in the hallmarking scheme being run by BIS since 2000.
Soni informed that BIS is having around 13,000 jewellers with hallmarked license and 285 hallmarking centres all over India. BIS is also taking steps to increase surveillance on jewellers and hallmarking centres. He added for enhancing credibility and traceability, a nine digit unique identification number is going to be introduced soon which will also ensure consumer confidence and at the same time give transparency and assure global visibility to the jewellers.
There were intensive discussions with the representatives of jeweller associations and consumer associations. It was agreed by all present that customer be compensated financially on establishing sale of sub-standard article/ deficiency detected either at the end of the jeweller or at the end of Assaying and Hallmarking centre. Around 100 representatives of jewellers, assaying and hallmarking Centres and consumer organisations participated in the meeting.