MMTC to open 10 hallmarking centres at Rs 1.5-1.7cr each

New Delhi, Oct 13 (UNI) MMTC will open 10 hallmarking centres for gold and silver jewellery across cities including Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Jaipur, Noida and Gurgaon within an year at an investment of Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 1.7 crore each.

''The Assaying and Hallmarking Centres (A&H) will tap the 15 per cent financial assistance by the government on machinery and equipment cost for each centre. A sum of over Rs one crore is involved in establishing each unit,'' MMTC Chairman Sanjiv Batra told UNI.

The state-run organisation already has one such centre in Delhi, which provides hallmarking services besides displaying and marketing the precious metals.

MMTC Deputy General Manager Ashwani Kapoor said the organisation has ''huge investment plans'' for phase-wise promotion of its utility brand Sanchi, for which it is aggressively signing up franchise agreements and also mulling setting up of its own stores.

The firm has already signed four franchise agreements in Delhi, one in Varanasi, two in Kanpur and is looking at south India as well.

MMTC has also launched a portal www.mmtclimited.com for promoting its 'Sanchi' brand and plans to earn Rs 10 crore from it by the next three years from the present Rs 2 crore.

The brand includes silver-made gifts, gold coins and medallions.

The customers can buy the products online at the current market prices which are subject to day-today changes.

Even as, the number of licences issued under the scheme has grown to 2,045 till August 2006, as against 935 as on March 31, 2005 and 186 in FY02, there are only 39 such centres in India and just 10 per cent of the jewellery is hallmarked, he said.

However, with initiatives being taken by the governmemnt, like making the hallmarking compulsory in big cities by 2008 and more awareness on the consumers' part, the trend is expected to pick up gradually, Mr Batra added.

As per a recent market survey conducted in 16 cities, out of 162 samples taken 147 were found short in purity with average shortfall of 13.44 per cent and highest shortfall of 44.66 per cent.

The A&H centres, recognised on the basis of compliance to BIS criteria, are in line with the requirements of the Vienna Convention on Control and Marking of Precious Metals launched in 1975 to promote free trade of jewellery.

UNI CS PV KN1137