Page 20 - Bullion World Volume 03 Issue 5 may 2023

Bullion World | Volume 3 | Issue 5 | May 2023

Mandatory HUID Hallmarking

- Milestones & Hurdles

Mr James Jose, President, Hallmarking Federation of India

Mandatory hallmarking of jewellery based training for AHC’S, dedicated
from June 2021 has witnessed 24 x 7 helpdesks at all BIS regions,
a tumultuous phase in jewellery and constant fine-tuning and
hallmarking for all stakeholders. The upgradation of the software and
quantity of jewellery hallmarked per hardware at the BIS portal, tackling
month has gone up from 3 million most of the problem areas of portal
articles to 10 million articles and the based HUID hallmarking. At the
number of BIS-registered jewellers BIS level, they have demarcated
going up from 35,000 to 1,55,000 separate servers for HUID portal,
in the subsequent periods. These delinking it from their regular
massive volumes necessitated a Manakonline portal, increasing the
software-based unique traceability servers from 4 to 8. The AHC’S
system for each jewellery article, too upgraded their machines and
to identify the jeweller and the employed more staff to tackle the
hallmarking centre. The HUID longer 6-hour working cycles of Mr James Jose
traceability system, which was in HUID hallmarking.
the pipeline from 2014 onwards, into the HUID portal and these
was implemented in July 2021. This In the mandatory regime, jewellery details become visible in the BIS
6 digit alpha-numeric code, similar hallmarking became mandatory at Care App as and when a customer
to the PNR in rail or airline tickets, the first point of sale, starting from verifies the article’s HUID credentials
carried all the credentials of a the manufacturers, and they have in the BIS care App. Revealing to
hallmarked jewellery article. increasingly taken BIS registration, the customer, the manufacturer’s
so that their goods can be shifted/ details in the BIS care App, often
When the HUID-based hallmarking sold after hallmarking, to the created problems for retail jewellers,
system was mandatorily retailer locations. Presently only whose brand identity and credentials
implemented, it also came with its 30,000 BIS licensees out of the of exquisite designs get diluted
share of operational problems. The total 1,55,000 are sending their before the customer. The solution
HUID software lacked the bandwidth goods for hallmarking and others to avoid /conceal such details in
and agility to handle around 4 are retailing the hallmarked articles the BIS care App is to reactivate
lakh hits in a day, the centres supplied by these manufacturers and the HUID transfer facility in the BIS
needed training on software-based wholesalers. Consequently, 75% of portal, so that the wholesaler at the
hallmarking, and the jewellers were the hallmarking work has shifted to manufacturing location transfers the
not familiar with their user id based these 10 manufacturing locations HUID to the retailer’s name, along
login of each and every article along like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, with its sales invoice. Corporate
with its weight to be uploaded for Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Trichur jewellers and Trade associations
hallmarking. The BIS HUID portal etc, leading to a situation where the have been demanding this change
was often very slow in processing AHC’S in the remaining locations of name in the BIS care App, which
the data, all of which resulted in are left with hardly any hallmarking may be in conflict with the demands
huge delays in hallmarking, often workload. When the hallmarking of small-scale retailers, on whose
going up to 3-5 days for getting the is done by the manufacturer at demand the HUID transfer facility
items hallmarked. However, over his location, naturally the name was deactivated in the portal. The
the subsequent weeks, these were of the manufacturer and nearby onus of quality and penalties of
sorted out, with regular software- hallmarking centre gets uploaded

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