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This guide is for independent and small-chain retail jewellers in the 12 newly notified districts, and for the stock and audit staff who have to run the counts. It is not a general introduction to RFID in jewellery retail — if that is what you need, start with our RFID jewellery inventory and anti-theft guide for India. This post covers what changed, what a piece-level regime does to your back office, and how to reconcile a count against HUID records.
What exactly changed on 3 August 2026, and which districts were added?
On 3 August 2026 the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution issued the Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery and Gold Artefacts (Third Amendment) Order, 2026, effective on publication in the Official Gazette. It brings 12 more districts into the scope of mandatory hallmarking, raising coverage from 380 districts to 392 across 26 States and Union Territories.
The 12 districts added by the 3 August 2026 order are:
- Kokrajhar — Assam
- Lakhimpur — Assam
- Panipat — Haryana
- Bhind — Madhya Pradesh
- Khandwa — Madhya Pradesh
- Vidisha — Madhya Pradesh
- Bhandara — Maharashtra
- Angul — Odisha
- Kotputli-Behror — Rajasthan
- Kancheepuram — Tamil Nadu
- Udham Singh Nagar — Uttarakhand
- Jhargram — West Bengal
In short, the expansion touches jewellers in Assam, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. It follows the sixth phase of 2 March 2026, which added seven districts — Rupnagar (Punjab), Banda (Uttar Pradesh), Beed (Maharashtra), Gomati (Tripura), Katihar (Bihar), Beawar (Rajasthan) and Neemuch (Madhya Pradesh) — and took the count to 380.
Mandatory hallmarking applies to six caratages: 14K, 18K, 20K, 22K, 23K and 24K, and the regime is already at scale: more than 60 crore items were hallmarked between 1 July 2021 and 5 March 2026.
Does mandatory hallmarking require RFID? No — here is the honest position
BIS hallmarking and HUID are a marking and certification regime. Nothing in the hallmarking orders requires RFID, and an RFID tag does not carry, replace, substitute for or satisfy a HUID. Any claim that RFID is needed for hallmarking compliance is a factual error, whoever is making it.
The division of labour is easy to state in one line: BIS certifies and marks the piece; your system has to know which marked piece is in which tray, today. The HUID — a six-character alphanumeric code assigned to each piece at a BIS-licensed assaying and hallmarking centre, and verifiable on the BIS portal — is the identity of record. RFID is a shop-side inventory tool that makes a piece-level physical count quick enough that you will actually run it often instead of dreading it once a year. That is the whole of the claim we make for it.
What does a piece-level obligation actually change in a shop's back office?
The practical shift is that stock stops being a weight-based aggregate and becomes a list of individually identified items. A tray that was one line in the register — 22K rings, so many pieces, total weight — is now a set of individual items, each with its own code. Everything downstream of that, from counting to returns to melt, has to be able to name the piece it is talking about.
- A physical count has to resolve to the piece. Matching a tray weight is no longer proof that the tray is correct; two similar rings can swap places and the total will still tie out.
- Pieces move between states, not just between shelves. A return, a size alteration, a stone reset, a melt and a re-hallmarking each change the status of a specific item, and your records must show that change rather than silently dropping the piece.
- Consignment and karigar movement need to be traceable both ways. What went out to the workshop, what came back, and what came back as something else are three different records.
- Approvals and branch transfers need the same discipline. Pieces out on approval with a customer, or moved to another counter, are still your stock and still have to appear somewhere in the count.
None of this is a new legal duty we are inventing — it is what individual identification does to bookkeeping. The same logic drives every serialised-stock system, and our guide to RFID inventory management and retail stock accuracy in India makes that argument in a non-jewellery setting. The jewellery-specific point is that the identity has already been assigned for you, by BIS, and it is sitting on the piece.
How do you reconcile a physical count against HUID records?
Reconciliation is a five-step routine, and the deliverable is not the scan — it is the mapping table linking each physical tag to the HUID of the piece it is attached to. Build that table properly and every later count is routine.
- Build the piece master. One row per piece, with the HUID as the identity of record, plus design code, caratage, gross and net weight, purchase reference and current location.
- Attach a machine-readable tag to each piece and map tag ID to HUID in your software. This is the critical point: the mapping lives in software, not on the tag. The tag carries a serial number your system recognises; the HUID stays what BIS assigned, on the piece and on the portal.
- Scan by container, not by shop. Count tray by tray, showcase by showcase, safe by safe, karigar bag by karigar bag. A count that produces one giant list tells you a number; a count structured by container tells you where the problem is.
- Produce a three-way difference report: present (what was scanned), expected (what the system says should be in that container), and unaccounted (expected but not found, or found but not expected anywhere).
- Investigate exceptions, not everything. Recounting the whole floor because two pieces are missing is how stock audits die. Work the exception list, closing each line with a status — sold, on approval, at the workshop, mis-shelved, tag replaced.
The mapping table has to survive a tag being cut off, damaged or replaced, which happens constantly with thread and loop tags. Make replacement a two-second job in software — retire the old tag ID, bind a new one to the same HUID, keep the history — not a reason to rebuild the record.
| Field | What it is | Where it lives | Why it matters at count time |
|---|---|---|---|
| HUID | Six-character alphanumeric code assigned at a BIS-licensed assaying and hallmarking centre | On the piece; in your piece master; verifiable on the BIS portal | The identity of record, for the life of the piece |
| Tag ID | Serial number of the RFID tag on the piece or its ticket | On the tag, and in your mapping table | What the scanner reads. Replaceable without loss |
| Design / SKU code | Your own product reference | Piece master | Lets you group and value the count |
| Location | Tray, showcase, safe, branch, karigar bag | Piece master, updated by each scan | Turns a difference into a place to go and look |
| Status | In stock, sold, on approval, at workshop, melted, re-hallmarked | Piece master, with date and user | Explains why a piece is legitimately absent |
HF at 13.56 MHz or UHF at 865-867 MHz — which suits a jewellery counter?
Both frequencies work in jewellery retail, and they solve different problems. HF RFID operates at 13.56 MHz and is short-range: it reads one piece, or a small cluster, reliably when presented to a desktop reader. UHF in India uses the 865-867 MHz band allocated by WPC — inside the wider ETSI 865-868 MHz range — and reads a whole tray or showcase from a distance, which is what makes a fast bulk count possible.
| Consideration | HF (13.56 MHz) | UHF (865-867 MHz in India) |
|---|---|---|
| Typical use in a shop | Counter-side verification, single-piece check at handover | Tray, showcase and safe counting; full stocktake |
| Read behaviour | One piece or a small cluster, by presentation | Many pieces at once, at a distance |
| Stray reads | Rarely an issue — range is short by design | A real risk: the next showcase can be counted by accident |
| Main design task | Reader placement at the counter | Read-zone control — power, antenna aim, shielding |
Metal and stone proximity affects tags at both frequencies, which is why jewellery tags are usually small loop or thread formats on a ticket rather than laminated onto the piece. For the physics, see our UHF, HF and LF RFID frequency guide for India; here, keep the decision commercial. Many shops end up with both: UHF for the count, a desktop reader at the counter for single-piece verification at handover, and a handheld or sled reader for trays, safes and karigar bags. Small on-metal or PCB/ceramic formats exist for trays, boxes and fixtures — but their place is on the container, not on the jewellery.
One warning about UHF: read-zone control is the whole project. An unmanaged reader counts the showcase behind you as well, and a count that quietly merges two locations is worse than no count, because it looks correct.
What should a shop do in its first 30 days in scope?
This is advisory sequencing, not a regulatory timetable — no deadline attaches to any week below. The aim is to reach a state where you can produce an accurate piece-level count on demand.
- Week 1 — reconcile paper to system. Before any hardware, make your existing stock register and your software agree. Tagging a wrong list only makes the wrong list faster to read.
- Week 2 — talk to your local BIS branch office. Confirm your registration status and what applies to your district and your business with the branch office having jurisdiction. Do not rely on trade rumour, or on this article, for that answer.
- Week 3 — tag and map. Attach tags counter by counter, binding each tag ID to the piece's HUID in software as you go. Do a tray at a time and verify that tray before moving on.
- Week 4 — run the first full count and fix the exceptions. Expect a difference list on the first run; that is the point of the exercise, not a failure of it. Close every exception with a status, not with a shrug.
- From week 5 — cycle-count weekly. A rotating subset of trays every week beats an annual marathon, and it catches drift while staff still remember what happened to a particular piece.
One thing to keep separate as you go: counting accuracy and loss prevention are different jobs with different hardware, so do not assume a stocktake system doubles as an exit-gate alarm.
What is not published — and where should you check?
Being straight matters more than sounding authoritative. No registration deadline, grace period or compliance clock for the newly added districts appears in the source material this guide relies on, so we do not state one. No penalty or fine is stated here either, because none was verified.
We also make no claim about registration fees, hallmarking charges per piece, or the number of registered jewellers or assaying and hallmarking centres. For all of that, contact the BIS branch office having jurisdiction over your district, and verify current requirements against the Official Gazette notification and BIS's own guidance before you act.
Where does India RFID Store fit in?
India RFID Store is the storefront of Identium Tech Solutions, a BIS and WPC certified Indian RFID manufacturer since 2015. For jewellery we supply jewellery RFID tags in HF and UHF variants, desktop readers for counter-side single-piece verification, and handheld and sled readers for tray, showcase and safe counting. What it costs depends on format, chip and volume — our RFID tag price guide for India explains the variables rather than quoting a number that would be wrong for your order.
If your district has just come into scope, send us your tray and showcase layout — how many counters, how they are spaced, what is metal — and we will run a read-zone check and tell you whether HF, UHF or a mix suits your floor. Identium builds the hardware side; your HUID records stay where BIS put them.
Frequently asked questions
How many districts are now covered by mandatory hallmarking?
392 districts across 26 States and Union Territories, following the Third Amendment Order of 3 August 2026. Coverage rose from 380 districts to 392 with that order.
Which districts were added on 3 August 2026?
Twelve districts: Kokrajhar and Lakhimpur (Assam); Panipat (Haryana); Bhind, Khandwa and Vidisha (Madhya Pradesh); Bhandara (Maharashtra); Angul (Odisha); Kotputli-Behror (Rajasthan); Kancheepuram (Tamil Nadu); Udham Singh Nagar (Uttarakhand); and Jhargram (West Bengal).
What is a HUID?
HUID is a six-character alphanumeric code assigned to each piece at a BIS-licensed assaying and hallmarking centre. It is verifiable on the BIS portal and acts as the identity of record for that individual item.
Which caratages does mandatory hallmarking cover?
Six caratages: 14K, 18K, 20K, 22K, 23K and 24K. If you are unsure how that applies to a line of your stock, ask your local BIS branch office.
Does hallmarking require RFID?
No. Hallmarking and HUID are a marking and certification regime, and nothing in the orders requires RFID. An RFID tag does not carry, replace or satisfy a HUID — it is only a shop-side tool for counting your own stock quickly.
Is there a deadline for jewellers in the newly added districts?
None is stated in the order as reported, and we will not invent one. Contact the BIS branch office having jurisdiction over your district to confirm what applies to your business and by when.
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