Barring huge corporates, most jewelry retailers remained shut on Monday in response to a nationwide strike name given by 350-odd jewelry associations to protest the brand new gold hallmarking guidelines of the Centre, All India Gem Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC) mentioned.
The jewelry our bodies are towards the federal government’s Hallmarking Unique ID (HUID) system which they mentioned has nothing to do with the purity of gold however is only a monitoring mechanism.
Speaking with PTI, All India Gem Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC) Director Dinesh Jain mentioned, “There has been a very strong response to a nationwide strike against the HUID system. Shops are closed for a day.”
Big corporates within the jewelry sector by no means take part in such strikes. Mostly particular person and family-run jewelry retailers in all 4 zones are shut for a day, he mentioned.
However, in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, retailers had been shut until 12.30 pm because of the Onam competition, he mentioned.
Jain additionally mentioned that the protesting jewellers will make a illustration to district collectors towards the gold hallmarking guidelines.
Mandatory gold hallmarking, a purity certification of the valuable steel, has come into power from June 16 in a phased method. The authorities has recognized 256 districts from 28 states and union territories for the phase-1 implementation.
Last week, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Director General Pramod Kumar Tiwari had urged jewellers’ our bodies to name off the strike, saying gold hallmarking implementation has to date been a “grand success.” BIS is implementing gold hallmarking system within the nation.
According to protesting jewellers’ our bodies, the sooner strategy of gold hallmarking was higher than the brand new HUID system which is towards the precept of ‘ease of doing business’.
Jewellers’ our bodies’ concern that the federal government could use the info being uploaded within the title of the brand new HUID system to crackdown on jewellers for any mismatch in inventory that’s been hallmarked and offered.
“There is a practical problem in implementing the HUID system. 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,” Jain defined.
This drawback is there at each stage from wholesaler, distributor, retailer to jeweller, he mentioned and argued that the BIS has a mandate to make sure purity of gold to customers and it ought to persist with that.
