Gujarat: Apex gems body asks diamond workers, industry players to not lose hope

Addressing a gathering of diamond manufacturers, traders and cutters astatine diamond-trading marketplace country astatine Ratnadeep successful Botad town, Pandya appealed to the attendees not to suffer hope, assuring them that the concern would amended aft March 2025 pursuing the decision of the statesmanlike elections successful the US.

Sources said owed to the ongoing tensions betwixt Israel-Palestine, Iran-Lebanon, and Russia-Ukraine on with the impending elections successful the US, the request for polished diamonds successful the planetary marketplace has dipped.

The hardest deed successful the authorities are diamond cutters who are facing reduced salaries owed to simplification successful workload.
Sources said that implicit 50% of diamond factories person unopen down implicit the past 2 years and thousands of diamond cutters person go jobless, with immoderate switching implicit to different lines of work.

To recognize the information of diamond-cutters oregon polishers, Pandya and his squad visited antithetic factories arsenic good arsenic villages successful Botad town.

“There are implicit 1,300 tiny and mean diamond factories successful the full district. While a tiny mill has a minimum 25 diamond- cutters, ample factories each person 700 of them. There are implicit 80,000 radical progressive successful cutting and polishing diamonds. Besides, determination are implicit 1,500 diamond traders. The diamond traded and manufactured successful Botad is straight supplied to large traders successful Mumbai and aboriginal exported to overseas countries,” said Shanker Dholu, President of Botad District Diamond Association.

He further said, “There are galore factories, which could not past the recession and unopen down. The enactment unit has shifted to different areas with immoderate workers returning to agriculture.”

Pandya asserted: “The diamond manufacture has been going done a pugnacious play for the past mates of years. After visiting antithetic factories and interacting with a ample fig of diamond-cutters, we recovered that portion they would enactment from 8am to 8pm during Diwali play earlier, this clip they are moving less hours successful 2 shifts: 8 americium to 11 am, and 2 p.m. to 5.30 pm. Their enactment has gone down from 50 to 70%.”

He further added, “We volition spell backmost to Mumbai, speech to the trustees and spot what tin beryllium done for the diamond cutters of Botad. The large occupation is that diamond cutters get little enactment and adjacent the mill owners’ concern is captious owed to deficiency of request for polished diamonds successful the planetary market.”

Pandya pointed retired that the diamond manufacture is not fixed the benignant of subsidy extended to different sectors. “We volition marque representations to the Ministry, enactment guardant the script of the manufacture and question assistance,” helium said.

“Presently, some wars (Israel-Palestine and Russia-Ukraine) are astatine their peak. There is besides the predetermination successful the US. We judge the concern volition past till March 2025 aft which planetary request whitethorn summation and the manufacture volition commencement gaining momentum,” helium added.

Set up by the Centre, GJEPC is an apex assemblage that aims to beforehand the gem and jewellery manufacture successful the country.