The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has conducted a survey to find out how pure is the gold that the Indian people buy. Result? Cheating is rampant across the length and breadth of the country.

Of the total samples of 22 carat gold that the BIS took, its investigations have revealed that 90 per cent of them are impure to an extent. That means that out of all the gold bought by customers there was a 90% chance the metal received was not as precious as the money paid for it.

Most failed the purity test miserably—the shortfall in purity could get as high as 44.66%, but the average of the total was 13.5%. The survey took 162 random samples across 16 cities

The writing on the wall is clear, the next time you buy gold keep in mind the fact that you are most probably being cheated. The safest choice before you is to go to a jewellery shop that has been certified by the BIS—the jeweller has to apply to BIS and ensure homogeneous quality. So, you better do a double check before handing over the money in return for the precious metal.