Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has decided to conduct market survey on gold jewellery in select cities for the purpose of raising consumer awareness about quality of jewellery sold in the market.
For this, BIS has invited Expression of Interest (EoI) from market research agencies/non-governmental organisations/voluntary consumer organisations. The last date for receipt of bids is February 4, 2008.
The survey is proposed to be conducted on 300 hallmarked jewellery articles purchased from 15 identified cities and 500 non-hallmarked jewellery articles purchased from 25 identified district locations and their semi-urban/rural areas.
As per the terms and conditions, the survey should involve purchase of hallmarked and non-hallmarked gold jewellery articles from market and getting it tested for purity at designated laboratories as informed by BIS, compiling the report and submitting it to BIS.
Hallmarked gold jewellery articles should be purchased from the 15 cities includes Chandigarh, Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot, Pune, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Cochin & Kolkata.
The survey should involve purchase of 20 articles from different retailers in each of these 15 cities (total of 300 articles).
The weight of article may vary between 5 to 15 gms. The different type of articles (e.g. bangle, ring, chain, pair of ear rings and pendent) should be purchased for both hallmarked and non-hallmarked jewellery, sources said. Non-hallmarked gold jewellery articles should be purchased from the 25 district locations includes Shimla, Amritsar, Patiala, Ambala, Rohtak, Dehradun, Lucknow, Varanasi, Patna, Guwahati, Bhopal, Raipur, Udaipur, Surat, Nagpur, Panaji, Visakhapatnam, Coimbatore, Trichur, Belgaum, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore.