Kerala   

Bring auspiciousness with care

So much is the demand for gold and ornaments on Akshaya Tritiya, the obvious question that comes one’s mind is what customers must look for while buying them. According to a jeweller, "the craftsmanship is as important as the price and quality."

"Every jeweller assures about quality and a customer can come to know of gold prices through various sources.

The finish or the craftsmanship is of utmost importance while buying gold jewellery," he says. However, many a times, Indian consumer becomes a victim of irregular metal quality.

According to Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the Government of India took cognizance and understood the necessity of protecting the public in its purchases of gold jewellery especially with regard to standards of fineness and the prevention of adulteration, be it deliberate or accidental.

It introduced Hallmarking Scheme. The principle objectives of the Hallmarking Scheme are to protect the public against the fraud of adulteration and to oblige manufacturers to maintain legal standards of fineness. Hallmarking is the accurate determination and official recording of the proportionate content of precious metal in gold.

Hallmarks are thus official marks used in many countries as a guarantee of purity or fineness of gold jewellery. Taking cognizance of these aspects the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Standing Committee on Gold and Precious Metals opined that introduction of a Hallmarking System would not only protect the public from fraud, but also assist exports of jewellery.

While agreeing on this the Committee reckoned that compulsory certification of gold would not be implementable on account of the massive structure of trade.

Recommending the pursuance of a voluntary scheme, it emphasized the deviations in purity of fine metal should invoke penalties under legislation and Bureau of Indian Standards was named as the sole agency in the country for Hallmarking of gold jewellery under the provisions of the BIS Act, 1986.

A jeweller says that in India, a buyer, for instance, will be told that he has bought gold of 22 carats.

When he goes to sell or exchange it, he discovers that the gold is actually of 18 carats or many customers have lost money in this way. In India, the emphasis is on high caratage jewellery, and problems have also arisen through the lack of suitable high carat solders.

The traditional handcrafted pieces in 22 carat contain many soldered joints and the use of solder alloys of a much lower caratage has meant a serious level of under-carating. The oldest types of fraud are those of adulteration by the addition of too much alloy, and the similar fraud of selling, as of gold or silver, articles externally of standard fineness but with base metal cores. These frauds continued until BIS launched Hallmarking Scheme.

The handcrafted jewellery is made using traditional tools and working practices. Melting and alloying is done using charcoal or coke-fired furnaces.

Soldering operations are done using a mouth blowpipe with a candle or oil flame. Many small workshops buy scrap which they sometimes re-use without refining, while other refine it themselves using old and crude technology.

Larger factories are equipped with modern electric melting units, investment casting facilities and machinery with their own modern refineries and producing gold either to 999 fineness via electrolytic refining as the final step or to 995 minimum fineness by conventional methods.

In tune with the aggressive sales pitch of jewelers to cash in on Akshaya Tritiya, banks too have joined the race to get a share of the huge market. Many banks have launched gold coins that are available at 4 gm, 8 gm, 20 gm and 50 gm coins.

They have tied up with many outlets to sell the gold coins. Obviously, the banks have realised the significance of the festival and are expecting to cash in on the opportunity.

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