DECODING THE ACT

The Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016 gives the BIS powers to make hallmarking of jewellery compulsory and to implement all the provisions The Act establishes the agency as the National Standards Body of India with a wider coverage, apart from jewellery It enables the Centre to appoint any authority, apart from the BIS, to verify the conformity of products and services to a standard and issue a certificate of conformity Coins and bars will also have to be hallmarked but that can be done only by refineries Jewellery hallmarking will be the hallmarking centre's domain