Amendments to Bureau of Indian Standards Act including giving legal recognition to hallmarking of gold jewellery under consideration of the Union Government

Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan, Union Minister of Food and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, has called for mandatory standards for more consumer goods and services. He also emphasised the need for simplifying the procedures for standards certification so that more sections of industry can come forward for voluntary certification and adoption of standards. Chairing the discussions with the stakeholders' on amendments in the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Act here today at Delhi, Mr. Paswan said besides more consumer goods, services should also be brought under preview of mandatory quality certification.

Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan also expressed his concerns over the quality of gold jewellery. After about 15 years of launching a hallmarking scheme for gold jewellery, the Union Government now plans to give it legal recognition through a suitable amendment to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Act but is yet to take a call on making the process mandatory. “Through the amendment of BIS Act, we are giving a legal status to gold hallmarking but it will remain a voluntary standard,” he said, adding that the decision on making hallmarking of gold jewellery mandatory has not been taken yet.

Hallmarking of gold jewellery was started by BIS in April 2000 to provide third party assurance to consumers on the purity of gold jewellery or its fineness. Under the scheme at present, a jeweller has to obtain licence from the BIS to get his jewellery hallmarked. The hallmark can be done at any Assaying and Hallmarking centres recognised by the BIS. 

Elaborating on the need to amend the BIS Act, Mr. Paswan said the government wants to “simplify every process including the registration, without making any compromise on standards”. He said the ministry is trying to bring this amendment before the Cabinet and the Parliament at the earliest.

He said quality and standards should become hallmark of consumer services and products to give impetus to ‘Make in India’.

The proposed amendments includes allowing BIS to make standards for more products from the current 90 items and enhancement of penalties, besides permitting the BIS to make standards for services. On packaged drinking water, Paswan favoured making the bottles tamper-proof and displaying details like date of manufacturing and expiry on the bottle instead of the current practice of mentioning such information on wrappers.