Gujarat seeks central help for slowdown-hit diamond industry

Gujarat’s minister of state for Commerce and Energy Saurabhbhai Patel in a letter to central minister of commerce Kamlnath has sought immediate intervention of the central government to help Gujarat’s slowdown-hit diamond industry.

In a letter Saurabhbhai said “Gujarat’s diamond industry has been seriously affected due to global slowdown. American economic situation has badly impacted diamond exporters in Gujarat. Orders are being canceled on domestic and international fronts and the situation is becoming more and more serious day by day.”

“Gujarat contributes 90% to the Indian diamond industry. More than 1 million diamond workers are employed in around 10000 diamond units in the state. Another 2.5 million people are indirectly dependent on the Diamond trade. Global slowdown has affected jobs of the thousands of workers in major diamond centres such as Surat, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Amreli in Gujarat,” the minister said in his letter.

Narrating state’s specific demands the minister in his letter to the central minister said that to save diamond industry from credit-crunch, RBI and other financial institutions should announce liberal credit policy with additional liquidity. Penalty on delayed export obligations should be waved or time limit should be extended. Service tax should be delayed for two years and the PSUs like Hindustan Diamond should give polishing and processing work to local state units.

Meanwhile after intervention by the labor department of Gujarat, some diamond units resumed their work on Monday in Surat. Labor department secretary had convened a meeting in Surat and ordered diamond unit owners to open their units from Monday. A monitoring committee was also formed in which representatives of diamond industry, diamond workers and labor department were included. The monitoring committee meets every day to monitor daily progress of targeted normalization of the situation.