The gold market in India is predominantly a market for buying and selling physical gold and gold in the form of ornaments. In the physical gold front, in the wholesale segment, nominated agencies are the bulk importers. This market is reasonably efficient from the point of view of distribution of bars and scraps over the length and breadth of the country, which takes place in a very effective manner. Price uniformity is also generally observable in areas with identical incidence of duties and tax. However in the market for ornaments and jewellery, consumer protection is still not assured, although it has received much policy attention in last few years. It is a well-known fact that cheating on caratage is widespread. In April 2000, Government of India introduced voluntary hall marking of gold jewellery through Bureau of Indian Standards. But the progress in this regard has been slow so far with only few jewelers have accepted the necessary certification with most of them having only partial stocks of their jewels hallmarked. In this backdrop, a study was carried out to understand the perception of customers purchasing gold ornaments and their awareness levels on the concept of hallmarking by Bureau of India Standards.
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