Surprisingly diamond cutting and polishing is not a highly skilled job, as even an ordinary farmer can learn the basics in four to six weeks. The whole process is rather mechanical and works like an assembly line. All the factories in Surat – the western Indian town that processes more than 90% of the world’s rough diamonds – use laser-scanners and computer programmes to determine the final shape of every diamond.
Before starting the process a layer of whitener is put on every sparkling piece to block the laser-light passing through it. After about 30 seconds of scanning, the machine provides a three-dimensional image of a tiny stone to the computer, which is than processed to determine the largest-size of conical shape that could be carved out. Sketches of the raw and finished shapes along with the respective weights are than printed on a sticker with a unique number. A tiny paper packet called ‘puria’ holds a single stone inside with its sticker pasted outside.
A supervisor inspects the results and on some rare occasions where he feels that a smaller but more valuable shape could be created from that raw piece, he takes it to the owners for approval. In a usual process he just explains the workers sitting around a small round table called “ghanti”, the exact contours they have to grind. The table has a hard-polished rotating centre against which the workers press the diamonds to cut the exact corner. In a noisy working atmosphere there might be little job satisfaction as almost all the stones they grind are really tiny ones with no individual identity and are sold in a lot of exactly similar pieces. The temptation for the workers to steal these precious stones must be very low as they get almost double the amount of remuneration than what they could expect anywhere else in Gujarat. Numerous close circuit cameras installed all around the factories are also a big deterrent.
Most of the 400,000 workers employed by the local companies come from Swarastra region – mainly the district of Bhavnagar. This was till the recession hit the entire industry, and the demand from the major consumers in the US, Europe and Japan dried up. The present situation and that in the foreseeable period is bleak.
Before starting the process a layer of whitener is put on every sparkling piece to block the laser-light passing through it. After about 30 seconds of scanning, the machine provides a three-dimensional image of a tiny stone to the computer, which is than processed to determine the largest-size of conical shape that could be carved out. Sketches of the raw and finished shapes along with the respective weights are than printed on a sticker with a unique number. A tiny paper packet called ‘puria’ holds a single stone inside with its sticker pasted outside.
A supervisor inspects the results and on some rare occasions where he feels that a smaller but more valuable shape could be created from that raw piece, he takes it to the owners for approval. In a usual process he just explains the workers sitting around a small round table called “ghanti”, the exact contours they have to grind. The table has a hard-polished rotating centre against which the workers press the diamonds to cut the exact corner. In a noisy working atmosphere there might be little job satisfaction as almost all the stones they grind are really tiny ones with no individual identity and are sold in a lot of exactly similar pieces. The temptation for the workers to steal these precious stones must be very low as they get almost double the amount of remuneration than what they could expect anywhere else in Gujarat. Numerous close circuit cameras installed all around the factories are also a big deterrent.
Most of the 400,000 workers employed by the local companies come from Swarastra region – mainly the district of Bhavnagar. This was till the recession hit the entire industry, and the demand from the major consumers in the US, Europe and Japan dried up. The present situation and that in the foreseeable period is bleak.
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