Glitter from Kovai

He started in a small way over four decades ago, having no store and carrying his small stock of diamonds to those who wanted to buy them. Today, Pankaj Mehta is the promoter of Dimexon Diamonds, a company engaged in cutting and polishing rough diamonds. After schooling in Coimbatore, he moved to Mumbai in the mid-1960s to learn the business of buying and selling diamonds. “In those days, very few people bought diamonds and it was not freely available in the open market until the mid-1970s, when De Beers recognised us as a customer,” recalls his son, Rajiv Mehta, a Director at Dimexon.

Having watched his father trade in diamonds, Rajiv was not new to the business. He is intent on growing the business not just in India, but overseas too. The company has eight facilities for cutting and polishing diamonds — four in Coimbatore and the rest in Mumbai — as also a jewellery factory in China. It has sales and trading offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dubai, Antwerp and Mumbai which are associate companies.

Why did the Mehtas pick Coimbatore? “We hail from Gujarat, but my father was born and brought up here. So he felt he owed something to this city, even after moving to Mumbai to eke out a living.” The first diamond-cutting unit was established at Goundampalayam, in Coimbatore, in 1987 with just five people. In six months, the unit grew to engage 150 people. The industry had started to evolve through technology intervention, processing and standardisation. “We set up the second unit soon after, and two others in Coimbatore came up in the last decade or so,” says Rajiv.

Today, of the 4,400 staff, nearly 3,500 are at its Coimbatore facility. Ninety-five per cent of the workers are women, who, according to Rajiv, are better at diamond cutting than men. “It has not been difficult to get and train people. We look for people with an aptitude to learn rather than any great qualification or skill set. Every member, whether graduate or otherwise, has to undergo four months’ training,” he adds.

The company has a training school where candidates are evaluated at various levels. “Polishing diamonds is a unique skill… there is no guarantee that every individual who undergoes training will eventually be absorbed by us,” says Rajiv. Each candidate gets a stipend during the training period, and it costs about Rs 30,000 to train each candidate. Eighty per cent of the trainees are employed by the company, he says.

Rough diamonds received from the company’s corporate office in Mumbai are cut, polished and sent back before being distributed to retailers in India and overseas markets such as West Asia, the Far East, Europe, the US, and to global watch brands. “Technology intervention has been high at our facility. We initiated implementation of ERP (enterprise resource planning) in 2006, even though such solutions have not been too successful in the diamond industry. Today, we are able to track the diamond at each level in our supply chain. It has given us phenomenal visibility,” he says.

Earlier, bigger-sized rough diamonds were cut manually. Now, thanks to technology, they can capture a three-dimensional view of the uncut diamond and cut it into smaller pieces with minimal wastage. Inventory keeping has become easier too with tech solutions.

“Diamond consumption has witnessed 25 per cent growth year on year in recent years. This is both due to increased awareness and marketing, and higher disposable incomes. Nakshatra has catalysed higher off-take of diamonds. In 2011, around 20 million carats of polished diamonds were produced,” he adds.

Today, the business is also driven by patents. Asked about its influence in diamond trade, Rajiv says, “We are basically manufacturers of diamonds. The round diamond was developed centuries ago... we can’t patent it. On the other hand, we have patented every process in the diamond pipeline and the training manuals. We don’t intend to sell diamond directly to the end-customer. We add value by helping retailers and dealers source their requirement — in terms of quality, caratage and volume.”

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