India's diamond sector reels from Ukraine, Gaza wars

Thousands of workers laid off amid slowdown, resulting in spate of suicides

- Debarshi Dasgupta

NEW DELHI - The two wars in Ukraine and Gaza are having a devastating impact on India's diamond industry, which is responsible for about 90 per cent of global diamond cutting and polishing.

Russia and Israel are major sources of India's rough diamond imports.

Coupled with a global economic slowdown, the falling supply and demand for diamonds are taking away jobs from workers in the Indian diamond industry and driving a spate of deaths by suicide.

Nine out of 10 of the world's diamonds are polished in the city of Surat, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, making it the hub of India's glittering diamond industry.

But in recent months, firms have had to lay off thousands of workers. The resultant financial distress has forced as many as 65 diamond industry workers in Surat to kill themselves in the past 16 months, according to the Diamond Worker Union (DWU), a Suratbased body.

The suicides prompted the union to launch a helpline on July 24 in an effort to prevent such deaths.

It has received more than a thousand calls, with most callers seeking financial help.

"Most ask for help to pay their rents or repay loans, or help them pay for their children's education," DWU president Ramesh Zilariya told The Straits Times.

India ranks as the world's largest diamond exporter, a distinction that relies on the import of rough diamonds from Russia, the world's largest producer of such diamonds.

Alrosa, a Russian group of diamond mining companies, traditionally accounted for 30 per cent to 40 per cent of India's imported rough diamonds.