CUTTING EDGE
On July 10, 45-year-old Bhavu Rupsang had arrived at his diamond-polishing unit in Kubawadi in Bhavnagar, hoping to get it working again after six days of shutdown in the wake of the strike. But he had to idle the whole day away along with other unit owners as attempt after attempt at reconciliation fell through. “Over the last two years, I have had to reduce the number of ghuntis (polishing equipment) in my unit from 20 to 10. There has been a constant decrease in the volume of work from Surat,” the publisher-turned-unit owner, who has 150-200 workers under him, laments.
Surat, the state’s diamond industry hub, which accounts for polishing worth about US $10 billon (Rs 40,000 crore), has increased the wages of local workers by 20 per cent after the agitation. A diamond worker in Surat cuts and polishes 60-100 diamonds in the course of a 10-hour day and is paid Rs 8,000-9,000 a month. But Rupsang can’t follow suit. “In Surat there are big traders and exporters. In Bhavnagar we all are just polishers. The units here are subsidiaries of Surat’s bigger units,” he explains.
The other reason is that Bhavnagar specialises in shaping small pieces of diamond, while Surat handles the bigger ones. Though shaping a smaller diamond requires the same time, energy and labour as shaping a larger one, the latter fetches a better price. Rupsang says, “Our raw material suppliers from Surat are in no mood to increase our labour charges. The diamond industry is facing a serious recession.”
While reiterating that the industry cannot absorb a wage hike, Rupsang says that the workers are right about demanding a hike in wages. “They are not spared by inflation. They need to survive,” he says.

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