Vijayawada: Jewellery traders down shutters in protest against hallmark rule

Vijayawada: Gold and jewellery traders barring big corporates observed one day bandh on Monday in response to a nationwide strike call given by 350-odd jewellery associations to protest the new gold hallmarking rules of the Centre. In Vijayawada, Vizag, Tirupati, Nellore and Guntur the jewellery shops downed the shutters.

The traders and all jewellery bodies say that the Centre's decision has nothing to do with purity. It appears to be more of a tracking mechanism. They said it was not possible to hallmark on every small item and send the details of sales to the Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS).

Talking to The Hans India, the traders said with more than Rs 40-lakh turnover a year will have to hallmark every gold article they sell. Hallmarking centres do the marking work by collecting charges from the traders and more than that it takes a lot of time to do the hallmarking.

UVG Kishore, secretary of the Machilipatnam Bullion Jewellery & Diamond Merchants' Association said that big traders and corporate firms can maintain the details of every gold item they sell and appoint staff as computer operators for uploading. But the same is not possible in case of small traders, he said.

They said suppose a wholesaler has a hallmarked gold jewellery stock of 50 kg. A retailer comes to him and buys 1 kg of jewellery. It takes a few minutes to give the stock but billing with HUID on each piece of jewellery takes hours.

Similarly, if a customer wants jewellery in short notice for some function, it would not be possible as it would take about four days to get the hallmark. The HUID rule will have a huge impact on the gold and jewellery traders, they said.