If you’re coming to India to adopt a child and if you’re returning to your country without doing jewelry shopping, then you may be missing one of the biggest opportunities of your lifetime to buy variety of jewelry especially made of gold in India. Know this: India is the biggest consumer of gold in the entire world – approximately 500-tons/ year. Unfortunately where there is demand, there is also abuse and India is no different.
24 karat gold or pure gold is too soft to wear as ornament so different parts of the world use different karats of gold for variety of reasons. Small quantities of strengthening alloys (SA) such as copper are used to make the ornaments strong. This is precisely where the abuse lies. For example, if you want a jeweler to make 22-karat ornament, you are suggesting that he should add 2 Karats of SA but what if the jeweler adds more than the suggested amount of SA (by reducing the karats of gold) but still charges you for 22 karats of gold? No way to know.
So what do you do? Do you have any way to protect yourself as a consumer? Fortunately Indian government has realized the impact of abuse and made some rules. Government of India has introduced hallmarking of jewelry and appointed ‘Bureau of Indian Standards’ (BIS), the national standards body of India as the body to prepare and promote standards and operation of different quality certification schemes. Hallmarking is a system of analyzing of precious metals like gold in a laboratory to ascertain their purity or fineness and certifying it.
Hallmarking is not compulsory but voluntary so when you go for your next jewelry shopping, go to shop that sells hallmarked jewelry. You can find the jewelry shop selling hallmarked pieces near you from the BIS web site at http://www.bis.org.in/cert/locate.htm and choose 1417:1999 option before you choose the location (state and city) and search. When you do make a purchase, don’t forget to get your official payment receipt and hallmark certificate of purity.
You may have to pay more for the hallmarked jewelry, but that's a small price to pay for quality. It is believed that If jeweler sell you jewelry made of say 5.5 karats less gold, claiming it to be of 22-Karat purity, you stand to lose as much as Rs 1000-1200 for every 10-gm of jewelry bought. You may be paying more once but you’re buying peace of mind and also investing in something for sure to appreciate with time. Happy shopping.
24 karat gold or pure gold is too soft to wear as ornament so different parts of the world use different karats of gold for variety of reasons. Small quantities of strengthening alloys (SA) such as copper are used to make the ornaments strong. This is precisely where the abuse lies. For example, if you want a jeweler to make 22-karat ornament, you are suggesting that he should add 2 Karats of SA but what if the jeweler adds more than the suggested amount of SA (by reducing the karats of gold) but still charges you for 22 karats of gold? No way to know.
So what do you do? Do you have any way to protect yourself as a consumer? Fortunately Indian government has realized the impact of abuse and made some rules. Government of India has introduced hallmarking of jewelry and appointed ‘Bureau of Indian Standards’ (BIS), the national standards body of India as the body to prepare and promote standards and operation of different quality certification schemes. Hallmarking is a system of analyzing of precious metals like gold in a laboratory to ascertain their purity or fineness and certifying it.
Hallmarking is not compulsory but voluntary so when you go for your next jewelry shopping, go to shop that sells hallmarked jewelry. You can find the jewelry shop selling hallmarked pieces near you from the BIS web site at http://www.bis.org.in/cert/locate.htm and choose 1417:1999 option before you choose the location (state and city) and search. When you do make a purchase, don’t forget to get your official payment receipt and hallmark certificate of purity.
You may have to pay more for the hallmarked jewelry, but that's a small price to pay for quality. It is believed that If jeweler sell you jewelry made of say 5.5 karats less gold, claiming it to be of 22-Karat purity, you stand to lose as much as Rs 1000-1200 for every 10-gm of jewelry bought. You may be paying more once but you’re buying peace of mind and also investing in something for sure to appreciate with time. Happy shopping.
Fee free to share your Indian shopping experience in the comments section
RN
RN
No comments:
Post a Comment