Directive to Regulate Bullion Industry by December

The government is mulling over introducing a directive to regulate the country’s bullion industry and jewellery business by the end of December this year. The draft of the directive on jewellery trading and market monitoring is awaiting final feedback from stakeholders of the bullion industry before it can be sent to the Cabinet for approval, according to Gokul Dhital, Director General of the Department of Supply Management and Consumer Protection. Though bullion traders and government had agreed to introduce such directive by the end of 2014, endorsement of the directive was constantly delayed after both the government and jewellers could not reach a common understanding on the purity level of gold ornaments. The need for a separate directive was felt after traders were found selling low quality gold and silver jewellery in the market. Moreover, government inspection team had found many jewellers were not even meeting the purity level of gold as per the government set standard. As per current government standard, any 24-karat gold jewellery should be 99.5 percent pure. However, the purity level of some samples of gold jewellery collected from the market in 2014 was found to be below 90 percent.