The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution has announced the commencement of the fourth phase of its mandatory hallmarking initiative. This phase, which began on 5th November 2024, will cover an additional 18 districts, bringing the total number of districts under mandatory hallmarking to 361.
Since the inception of the mandatory hallmarking scheme, over 40 crore gold jewellery items have been hallmarked with a unique HUID, ensuring greater consumer trust and transparency. This proactive measure by the Government of India has led to the hallmarking of over 4 lakh gold items per day.
BIS earlier implemented the first phase of mandatory hallmarking, which was launched on 23rd June 2021. This phase covered 256 districts whereas the second phase commenced from 4th April 2022 where 32 districts were further added. This was followed by the third phase which was implemented from 6th September 2023 and covered 55 newly added districts.
Since the launch of Mandatory Hallmarking, the number of registered jewellers has increased from 34,647 to 1,94,039 — a remarkable increase of more than five times. Similarly, the number of Assaying and Hallmarking Centres (AHCs) has grown from 945 to 1,622.
As of 1st November 2024, the BIS Care app, which enables consumers to verify the authenticity of hallmarked gold jewellery items bearing a HUID number, had been downloaded 82.2 lakh times.