Govt officials meet to discuss package for diamond industry, DWUG members not invited

Those present at Wednesday’s meeting were representatives of Surat Diamond Association, District Employment Office, District industry officers, Labour department officials,  and officials of leading banks.

A decision regarding the formation of a ‘scrutiny committee’, which will accept applications from the diamond polishers and diamond unit owners and verify them, was taken to help people avail the benefit of the government scheme.

As per the package, the state government will bear the school fees of up to Rs 13,500 for a year of children of diamond polishers, aged 21 and above, who have been jobless for the last one year but have worked for at least three years before that. Apart from this, the 9 per cent interest rate on term loan of maximum up to Rs 5 lakh availed by diamond unit owners will be waived for three years starting July. Diamond units with machinery investments worth Rs 2.5 crore that has witnessed power consumption going down in the last one year will get subsidy on electricity duty on power bills.

Talking to The Indian Express, Surat Diamond Association President Jagdish Khunt said: “The diamond industry is widely established in Surat. There are around 3,500 diamond factories here and around 7 lakh artisans work in these factories. The figures are not accurate though, as no survey has been conducted till date. It would be difficult to identify polishers who have been unemployed since last year. The implementation of the state government’s scheme in the diamond industry is quite difficult,” he said.

He further said, “Of 3,500 diamond factories, over 80 per cent run with staff strength of 10 to 40 (2 emery wheels-10 emery wheels). These factories do not have any official company name and are not registered. Similarly, there are diamond polishers who switch jobs and move to different factories every quarter or so , keeping in mind higher wages. The firm owners also do not have details of polishers.”

“At the meeting, it was decided that application forms will contain all necessary details of diamond polishers and diamond unit owners. The work on preparing these forms has been started. Another meeting will be held next week to discuss further actions,” he said.

The Indian Express also spoke to DWUG Vice-President Bhavesh Tank. “We have been protesting over the issue of joblessness since the last three years. We have submitted memorandums multiple times to the Surat District Collector and written to the Chief Minister. The state government has now come up with a financial package for the diamond industry. We were not invited to the meeting,” he said .

He also said: “A couple of days ago, we wrote to the Chief Minister, requesting him to waive off school fees of children of diamond polishers who are unemployed or semi-unemployed (whose salary has gone down by 50 per cent). We have been fighting for the rights of diamond polishers since long. We have all the details of polishers. If we are invited to such meetings, we can provide these details to the committee.”

District Collector Pardhi did not respond to calls till press time.