meena pandey a 54yearold homemaker in north delhi had built a small gold jewellery reserve for her daughters wedding some of the gold was from her own marriage and the rest was bought from the family jeweller over the past 30 yearsone day ahead of her daughters wedding pandey pulled the jewellery out of the bank locker and took them to a hallmarked jewellery shop that was promising no value deduction if one exchanged old gold for new even our family jeweller would have deducted 45 so trying a hallmarked shop seemed like a good idea says pandeyhowever when the gold items were tested on a caratometer in the shop their purity was found to be of 18 carats not the 22 carats pandey had paid for in one swoop her gold jewellery items had lost a major part of their current market value advt failing the testindia has more than 300000 jewellers and most of the gold jewellery they sell is believed to have a purity of 22 carats 22 parts gold and two parts other metalsbecause gold is too soft for use in its purest form 24 carats it is mixed with either silver or nickel to make it sturdygiven wide scope for adulteration jewellers are supposed to specify the purity of gold they are selling and charge customers accordingly in reality this is seldom the case especially in towns and villages where the local jewellers verbal assurance on purity is considered enoughpandey was not the only customer to feel cheatedmost buyers come to know of the amount of adulteration in their gold items many years after the purchase when they go to sell or exchange their jewellery to check such cheating incidents in 2000 the central government introduced a voluntary hallmarking scheme to promote sale of certified gold by retailers this requires the jewellers to register with the bureau of indian standards bis the governing body for gold hallmarking the hallmarking is then done at one of the 877 bisrecognised assaying and hallmarking centres ahcs across the country for a fee of rs 35 per piece hallmarking is done through laser that does not spoil or bend the jewellery advt today hallmarked jewellery accounts for 4050 of total gold item sales however only 26019 or 87 of the jewellers across india have registered with bisthus the buyers mistrust of the jeweller appears to be intact in an october survey by localcircles community social media platform 59 of the 56000 respondents said they had low trust in their jewellers while 48 said they or their families had been cheated by jewellerswhile gold standard has been established only for 14 18 and 22 carats in reality gold in india is sold in many variants from 1 carat to 23 it is common to find jewellers selling 23 carat gold items if one goes to akola or solapur in maharashtra while in haryana punjab and western up they usually sell 20 carat gold says chirag sheth a consultant