Indian Jewelry » Gemstone Diamond Jewelry India

The Indian diamond cutting and polishing industry is located mainly in the State of Gujarat. Rough importers are concentrated at Mumbai but most of the rough received is passed on to sub-contractors of Gujarat who get it cut and polished. Some importers have their own factories at Surat and some other centres. In recent years, some of the Surat operators themselves have become importers and independent manufacturers. Thus Surat also has joined the selected OTC Sightholders group now.

Largest Industry :
India's main diamond cutting centres are located in Surat and Navsari, followed by developing centres at Bhavnagar, Palanpur and Mumbai. A Mumbai - based diamantaire has established a modern diamond processing factory at Junagadh - a traditional Gujarat town. While Surat is the largest centre for diamond cutting, Bhavnagar is known for single cuts and Navsari for full cuts. Large sizes are generally cut in Mumbai. Recently, diamond centres have also been established at Trichur and Thrussoor (Kerala), Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu), Pune (Maharashtra) and a few other locations like Ahmedabad. More are to come up in Tamil Nadu. A Gems Park is being planned there. Baroda (Gujarat) is also to have a diamond industrial park. Mumbai has advanced rapidly after the establishment of a sophisticated cutting and polishing school by the trade at a city polytechnic. Rajasthan has a modern diamond factory at Jodhpur and a private enterprise has started training educated youths in diamond processing at Nawalgarh, near Jaipur.

The Indian diamond industry registered tremendous growth during the last few decades. But, in spite of this proliferation and the coming up of a few large, modern, even air conditioned factories equipped with the latest technology at different places, it still retains its cottage character, in as much as many of the diamond processing factories are still small ones, although they too are now using electrically operated machinery instead of the hand driven wheel.
Mumbai is the main business centre for diamonds, but here also most of the big diamond magnates are enterprising Gujaratis. Some of the big ones have overseas offices and branches in many countries. Many Indian diamantaires have fanned out to distant foreign centres worldwide. They also help India in diamond trading as well as marketing modern Indian jewellery. Besides trading offices they are now establishing diamond processing factories in various countries, thus virtually globalizing the diamond industry and earning the highest compliment that "the Sun never sets on the Indian Diamond industry in their latest achievement is a diamond processing factory near the Arctic Circle. Now efforts are on for a similar venture in Canada too.

An important development of the recent past is the establishment of private limited companies for diamond manufacturing and exports. They have established modern factories to process better diamonds and survive even in adverse times.