The Bureau of Indian Standards -BIS has proposed mandatory hallmarking of gold and silver jewellery to ensure quality of the ornaments for common consumers. According to an official release, the agency has so far issued 9156 licences for gold jewellery and 537 for silver jewellery till January 2012. The BIS has also introduced a scheme for issuing licences from hallmarking centres so that small time manufacturer of gold and silver jewellery can get their items hallmarked. 178 such centres have been recognized by the agency till the end of January this year.