Published On : Fri, Dec 2nd, 2022

Shocking!! Several Nagpur bullion traders selling gold with fake hallmark: BIS in RTI reply

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Nagpur: In a shocking revelation, as many as 35 bullion traders from Second Capital of the State have failed the mandatory hallmark test, Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) said in an RTI reply.

Sanjay Agrawal, an RTI Activist from city has filed an application with BIS enquiring about the random testing of gold ornaments at the shops of 800 bullion traders between December 2021 and September 2022. He was taken aback by the response as of the 800 jewellery shops, ornaments in 35 failed purity test scoring below 916 grade (916 gold is nothing but 22 carat gold).

Speaking to Nagpur Today Agrawal informed that BIS didn’t address all of his queries, as the reply included only figures and not names of the jewellers.

“BIS didn’t address all of my queries enlisted in the RTI application. They just provided the figures of the shops who failed the hallmark test but refrained from giving away their names. I’ve filed two more applications in this regard,” he said.

Notably, BIS Mumbai office has suspended one hallmarking centre in Itwari area of Nagpur. There were six hallmarking centres in the city of which the BIS Mumbai office has suspended one — SB Hallmarking Centre owned by one Bharat Suryawanshi. The BIS website also shows that SB Hallmarking Centre is under suspension.

Though officers at the local office refused to divulge the reason, sources said this might be the fallout of ornaments failing the purity test as authorized hallmarking centres have to authenticate purity of gold.

Hallmark is basically a certification of purity given by Assaying and Hallmarking Centres (AHCs) accredited by the BIS that the gold is of a particular purity. The Central Government had made hallmarking of gold mandatory from June 16 last year. Any gold jewellery sold from shops must have BIS hallmarking to certify the yellow metal’s purity.