Prayagraj jewellers shut shop against hallmarking
Jewellery shops in all prominent markets of the city remained shut as part of this nationwide one-day strike
PRAYAGRAJ: Most jewellers across Sangam city observed a day-long token strike in protest against the implementation of mandatory hallmarking process by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), on Monday.
Jewellery shops in all prominent markets, including Chowk, Katra Civil Lines and Teliyarganj, among other localities, remained shut as part of this nationwide one-day strike, said Prayagraj Sarafa Association office bearers.
The jewellers have formed a national task force with 350 associations and federations representing all four zones of the entire gems and jewellery industry for opposing the implementation of mandatory hallmarking process claiming that the Hallmarking Unique identification (HUID) is against the principle of ease of doing business. The one-day strike was announced by this national task force.
“HUID is cumbersome and will lead to harassment of customers which would finally adversely impact jewellers,” claimed Dinesh Singh, the president of Prayagraj Sarafa Association. “The one-day token strike is our peaceful protest against the arbitrary implementation of
HUID which is impractical,” he said. Jewellers claimed that the entire system that the BIS wished to implement was full of anomalies.
“HUID is not a fool-proof system as there have been lots of issues with it such as double HUID on the same jewellery item, same HUID on multiple items of jewellery etc. Moreover, against crore of pieces requiring HUID, the country has very limited capacity of hallmarking. All these issues will only end up affecting jewellers,” claimed Atul Chopra, the general secretary of the association.
Rajesh Singh, a third-generation jeweller of Prayagraj, said jewellers were not against hallmarking as such but were opposed to HUID as the new HUID process involved cutting, melting, and scraping of jewellery items intended to be sold. “The entire process of hallmarking gets defeated when jewellery is damaged,” he claimed.