NEW DELHI: Putting the onus on gems and jewellery manufacturers and sellers to ensure customers get quality precious items, consumer affairs secretary Nidhi Khare on Friday asked the industry to honestly disclose about natural and lab-grown diamonds while selling and in their advertisements as well.
Speaking at the CII Gems and Jewellery conference, she urged the industry to be truthful while selling precious items and to ensure that people can trace their origin even after years of purchase. “Some showrooms claimed they don’t deal with this. But I suspect they might be dealing with such products without disclosure. People buying the lab-grown should not get cheated for paying for natural diamonds. The industry must disclose,” she said.
Khare added that the department is framing regulations for lab-grown diamonds to protect the interest of consumers buying natural diamonds that are much costlier. She added that the demand for lab-grown diamonds is rising.
She also said that the govt is considering the proposal to make hallmarking of gold bullion mandatory while highlighting the successful implementation of mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery and gold artefacts, which started from June 2021. So far, more than 40 crore gold jewellery items have been hallmarked with a unique HUID, ensuring greater trust and transparency for consumers.
On the proposal for making hallmarking of gold bullion mandatory, she said, “The whole idea is that while jewellers are actually importing gold, many times, they themselves are not sure about the quality of gold that they are receiving or they are buying. So, I think the entire value chain needs to be identified for its correctness, for its accuracy, for honesty and truthfulness.”
