Sign in

Meerut bullion traders to verify artisans’ credentials before giving them gold

General secretary of MBTA Vijay Anand Agarwal shared that the market had over 30,000 Bengali artisans who were experts in making jewellery from raw gold and had been working here since decades.These artisans collected raw gold from the jewellers and manufactured ornaments at home. The entire business was is based on mutual trust. However, a few artisans had disappeared with the gold and it became very difficult to recover it.

Updated on: Jul 28, 2023, 24:40:36 IST
Share
Share via
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • linkedin
  • whatsapp
Copy link
  • copy link

MEERUT A joint team of Meerut Bullion Traders Association (MBTA) and Meerut Bengali Swarnkar Welfare Association (MBSWA) will launch a massive drive for verification of Bengali artisans to check growing incidents of workers running away with gold.

A meeting of bullion traders and artisans in progress in the bullion market in Meerut. (HT)
A meeting of bullion traders and artisans in progress in the bullion market in Meerut. (HT)

The MBTA and MBSWA took this decision in a joint meeting on Wednesday and agreed to begin this verification drive in the next two weeks.

It was decided to verify details of all artisans, including their names, local address, permanent address, name and addresses of their relatives, mobile numbers and police stations and also to get their character verification done through police.

General secretary of MBTA Vijay Anand Agarwal shared that the market had over 30,000 Bengali artisans who were experts in making jewellery from raw gold and had been working here since decades. He said that more than 5,000 units of jewellers were operational in the district. These artisans collected raw gold from the jewellers and manufactured ornaments at home. The entire business was is based on mutual trust.

However, a few artisans had disappeared with the gold and it became very difficult to recover it.

A jeweller Sanjay Verma recently lodged a complaint in T P Nagar police station, accusing artisans Sandeep Bora, Najrul and Kartik Bora of disappearing with 400 grams gold given to them for making jewellery.

Another jeweller Archit Jain lodged a complaint against his helper Ritik Kumar who disappeared with his gold on the way to Meerut from Delhi.

Anand said that such incidents had increased in past few years which compelled them to put in place a mechanism to thwart such thefts.

MBSWA’s president Sheikh Dilawar Hussain appealed to bullion traders to not give gold to any artisan without seeking guarantee of the association.

Bengali Association’s Manoj Mandal said that out of sheer competition, jewellers gave gold to those artisans who charged less, without checking their credentials.

Jeweller Sanjay Verma said that verification was required and hoped that it would help control thefts.