Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 27 (KNN) All Kerala Gold and Silver Merchants’ Association has urged the union government to extend the deadline for gold merchants to get the Hallmark Unique Identification (HUID) number on ornaments.

The Union government had fixed the last date to get a HUID number as April 1.

Association treasurer S. Abdul Nassar said that Kerala had a tradition of selling prescribed quality gold even before the implementation of the hallmarking system.

“ The gold merchants have maintained that the stock of products in the sales outlets are all in the list of Income Tax department, GST department and the Bureau of Indian Standards. Under such circumstances, the merchants were justified in their demand for more time to get HUID for ornaments in their outlets,” he said.

The demand for extension of deadline was also raised at a meeting convened by the Department of Consumer Affairs last week, reported The Hindu.

The gold Merchants pointed out that when the existing four hallmarking logos on gold ornaments are erased and the HUID is imposed, the loss for the seller is about two mg to five mg per piece.  (KNN Bureau)