Gems and Jewellery edited FINAL - smallB

are about 450,000 goldsmiths spread throughout the country. India was one of
the first countries to start making fine jewellery from minerals and metals and
even today, most of the jewellery made in India is hand made.
The industry is dominated by family jewellers, who constitute nearly 96 per
cent of the market. Organised players such as Tata with its Tanishq brand,
have, however, been growing steadily carving a 4 per cent market share. As
India’s jewellery market matures, it is expected to get more organised and the
share of family jewellers is expected to decline.
There are more than 6000 players in domestic diamond processing industry.
The average gestation period for setting up a diamond cutting and polishing
unit is 15 months. The low gestation period, coupled with low capital cost
allows easy entry into the sector. This has led to the industry being largely
characterised by a large number of small scale players. However, just as in
the case of jewellery, the share of the organised sector has increased
significantly in recent years due to an increase in demand for better and
finer quality finished goods.
Presence of traditional pockets of jewellery manufacture
• Jewellery crafting by traditional goldsmiths is confined to a few regions in
India. These pockets are widely separated and involve craftsmen whose skills
have been handed down over generations. Surat is an important diamondprocessing
centre, which exports around 80 per cent of the production and
has more than 3,500 diamond processing units.
• Jaipur is a key centre for polishing precious and semi-precious gemstones.
• Delhi and its neighbouring states are famous for manufacturing silver
jewellery and articles.