BIS Bengaluru Branch Office, under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Government of India, successfully organized the Assaying & Hallmarking Centres Meet and Jewellers Meet on 20th August 2025 at I.V Sanctum Hotel, Bengaluru. The event was conducted in two sessions - the morning session for Assaying & Hallmarking Centres (AHCs) and the afternoon session for Jewellers Associations. The meet brought together hallmarking officials, jewellers, and stakeholders from across the Southern Region to discuss developments, challenges, and future initiatives in hallmarking.

The programme began with a welcome address by Dr. Meenakshi Ganesan, Deputy Director General (Southern Region) SRO, Chennai highlighted the importance of hallmarking in safeguarding consumer trust and ensuring quality standards the gold jewellery sector. She also appreciated the AHCs and jewellers for their untiring support to the BIS implementing the guidelines and new initiatives taken from time to time.

Smt. Chitra Gupta, Scientist-G & Deputy Director General (Hallmarking) has delivered the keynote address. In her address, she has highlighted the recent and upcoming initiatives in the Hallmarking scheme. She also informed that a pilot project is going to be implemented for capturing weight and photograph of hallmarked articles, where AHCs participate voluntarily. She also urged all the AHC participants to integrate microbalance, laser machine, etc. to the BIS system without fail and the manual entries are going to be discontinued. She also gave brief description of newly implemented Silver hallmarking HUID scheme and introduction of 9 carat grade in gold. She also requested the participants to give their valuable suggestions for the improvement of Hallmarking scheme.

Shri Akshay Kaushik, Scientist-D & Joint Director, gave an overview of the latest changes and upcoming initiatives in the hallmarking scheme including automated renewal system. He also explained the significant changes like definition of article, Gold coin, etc. in the Amendment 2 to IS 1417.

Shri R. Tirumala Rao, Scientist-E/Director & Hallmarking Officer (Southern Region) shared key findings from recent AHC audits and discussed several practical issues related to audit and Shri K.N.V.S. Chaitanya, Scientist-C/Deputy Director, SRO Chennai, delivered a detailed presentation on hallmarking of Sliver HUID scheme.

During the programme, several points were raised by AHC and Jewellers. All points were deliberated at length and all the doubts were resolved. Some of the valuable suggestions given by the participants were noted regarding pilot project, hallmarking sample drawal, marking of HUID numbers, etc. All the participants were happy and appreciated the efforts of BIS in conducting such an important event for the benefit gold industry.

The event was coordinated by Smt. Vinodhini Kishore, Scientist,E/Director, BIS Bengaluru Branch Office.

Smt. M Sushma Rao, Sc-E/Director & Head BIS Bengaluru Branch office delivered vote of thanks. 

 

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(Release ID: 2158493)