Jewellers in Chennai decide to down shutters for a couple of hours on Monday as a token strike against the method to supply hallmarking unique ID (HUID) for each piece of jewelry .

The Chennai Jewellers’ Association plans to organise the protest, coinciding with the nationwide strike announced on Monday by the National Task Force on Hallmarking. About 7,000 shops are going to be closed between 9 a.m. and 11.30 a.m. on Monday.

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) had made gold hallmarking mandatory from mid-June. one among the main challenges faced by jewellers, they say, is that they need to upload a six-digit HUID number, affixed to every hallmarked jewellery piece on the BIS portal. At a news conference persisted Sunday, Udhay Vummidi, the association’s president, said HUID was provided supported tracking mechanism, and it didn’t have a link to ascertaining the purity of gold. it’s a time-consuming process, and assaying centres don’t have the capacity to hallmark jewellery. Earlier, hallmarking was wiped out batches.

While jewellery stock waiting to be hallmarked was already piling up, the HUID process would only cause further delay, affecting the world . The new process, which also seeks customers’ details, could pose a threat to their rights, he said.

Jayanthilal Challani, president, The Jewellers and Diamond Traders’ Association Madras, said nearly 25% of the 47,000 jewellers registered with the BIS belonged to Tamil Nadu .

On average, each of the registered jewellers would have about 10 kg of gold jewellery waiting to be hallmarked.

There was no clarity on the insurance factor of the jewellery given to assaying centres. The retail sale of gold ornaments improved by 10% recently after a gentle dip in prices. The new hallmarking process would be detrimental to the industry, he said.