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Jaipur:
"City of Colored Gems"
Jaipur is India’s second important gems and jewellery exporting centre and the first for sales to foreign tourists. With a history dating back to more than two and a half centuries, the famed Indian Gems City of Jaipur is still a hotspot in Gems 'n'
Jewellery.
From tradition-bound manual processing of colored gems and the manufacture of specialised jewellery like Minakari, the long passage to a modern gems and jewellery sector has been a difficult and rather slow transition, but Jaipur has endeavoured to keep pace with changing times. It has been a double challenge - living up to past glory, while moving ahead in modern times to meet growing global competition. So what Jaipur offers now is actually a glorious synthesis of the ancient and the contemporary.
Jaipur had not only been the main colored gems processing centre of India, but also a global centre because most of the world supply of cut and polished emerald flowed out from this gems city. Besides emeralds, Jaipur has been processing the whole rainbow of colored gems, as well as pearls. The traditional processing work undertaken here with outstanding skill includes cutting and polishing of over a hundred species of colored gemstones, both natural and synthetic, carving, bead-making, stringing, manufacture of objets d’art and fine jewellery. A local Ustad (master cutter) has performed the rare feast of cutting 1400 tiniest emeralds, totally weighing a single carat ! A world record indeed.
Modernization:
Lately the most important step Jaipur has taken forward, is modernization of both the gems and jewellery industries. It started manufacturing colored gems in calibrated sizes to meet overseas demand. Ultrasonic machines were inducted into the bead making industry. Semi-automatic production in other sections of the gems sector followed. A very important development in this respect is that today Jaipur is not only using modern machines but is also manufacturing some of them.
Dynamic Generation:
The younger generation has brought dynamic Transformation and internationalism to this sector. Younger gemsmen have taken keen interest in not only modernising manufacturing, but are also concentrating on marketing which has become vitally important in modern business. The traditional jewellers did business at their 'gaddis' with mostly their the globe by personal visits, displaying choice goods at international expos and developing new contacts, but have also established branch offices overseas, thereby broadening the horizons of this business. They are actually ambassadors of this beautiful world of gems and jewellery who have crossed the seven seas to spread the message of global cooperation in this fraternity.
Jaipur already has a Gem Testing Laboratory, which conducts training too, and a regional office of India’s apex body Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council. A gem Industrial Park was also started. The Industrial Development Corporation of Rajasthan has taken it over and proposes to resurrect it.
Jaipur, which has diversified into modern automatic jewellery making, now has a Jewellery Product Development Centre too which has commenced training jewellery designers. The aim of the GJEPC in founding this much needed facility is to provide trained designers for the city’s developing jewellery industry.
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