Devngi Gems: Making India Proud.

Dr. Dixit’s area of expertise was in Nano technology. He had retired from IIT Kanpur. He and his son Sanjeev Kumar Dixit did not find it difficult to realize the business potential of LGDs. They therefore decided to collaborate with the Vaviya brothers and help them in research and development.

Dr. Dixit had set up a research & development center in Delhi. My dad lived in Delhi for two years to learn the technical aspects of the CVD process. He soon was able to rope Dr. Dixit in the business as technical partner. They started researching in 2015 and within two years developed an MPCVD manufacturing reactor and recipe that led to the start of LGD business.

The Early Years:

My grandfather Sambhubhai Vaviya, a farmer from Amreli migrated to Surat in search of a business opportunity. The opportunities of gainful employment there were limited. He started his career first as an artisan and later started trading in diamonds. My father Naresh bhai and uncle Hasmukh bhai decided to be a little different and started gold jewellery retail in the Devngi jewellers. Devngi is the name of our family deity. Once the business was set up, they also started dealing in diamonds in the domestic as well as export markets. They also dabbled in sand mining and real estate for some time. In 2014, they identified an opportunity in lab grown diamonds.

It so happened that my father while reading a newspaper came across an article about lab grown diamonds. At first he found it difficult to believe that diamonds can be grown in a laboratory and shared the article with Hasmukh bhai. The brothers decided to dig deeper and find out more about this industry. Their research led them to a conference in Delhi where they met Dr. Prakash Narain Dixit.

started growing diamonds on a large scale. In the initial years, getting diamond seeds (they were not available) was difficult. One had to slice the natural diamond rough, cut it and polish it for growing in the reactor.

We started growing diamonds in a reactor that was designed, developed, and fabricated in house. We have never imported or used an outside reactor in the growing process. The components for the reactors were of course sourced/ imported from abroad.

Depending on the recipe the output from a reactor ranges from 200 carats ( of GHI color ) to 120 carats per month ( of EFG color). If you treat IJK color rough, you can get pink & Blue diamonds. Usually the lower quality diamonds are treated for manufacturing fancy colored diamonds. There is an elaborate and time consuming process as the diamonds need to undergo the process of ion bombarding

The market for fancy color LGD is small but growing rapidly. There is a huge demand for white diamonds. Growers in India therefore send the diamonds to Bhabha Automic Research Center (BARC) for ion bombarding. The process generates harmful gamma rays. Moreover, the equipment for ion bombarding is very expensive. It therefore makes no commercial sense to invest funds for this activity. None of the growers do the treatment of CVD diamonds. High speed ion bombarding removes the nitrogen from the diamond. Once the diamonds are received from BARC, they go for the annealing process. Ion bombarding and annealing results in the change of color of the diamonds. Diamonds of inferior color go through this process that takes on an average 9 days.

Business opportunity :

Many growers in India were facing a problem in sourcing good quality reactors. The reactors made by German and Japanese companies were expensive. The Chinese reactors though cheap had quality issues, (after sales service backup was also poor) Devngi therefore spotted an opportunity in late 2020. We therefore decided to market MPCVD reactors that would ultimately help the Indian market grow. This initiative is greatly in line with Govt of India’s Make in India program.

Devngi therefore participated in the LDJS 2022 show in August. The show helped Devngi to generate a good business. We have booked big orders from the domestic as well as overseas market. Currently our factory is booked for the next four months to complete the order execution.

We have a technical collaboration with a German company Fricke and Mallah GMBH in 2019 for the power supply units that are an integral/ key component of the reactor. Power supply greatly increases the efficiency of the machines.

Many Government research laboratories are our clients. Indian companies have realized that in order to be profitable, controlling the supply chain is crucial.

Growing diamonds has now become an imperative. They now have an Indian company that can help them grow their own diamonds. We help companies who want to grow their diamonds by selling the same machines that we ourselves use.

Our machines’ prices range from Rs. 85 lakhs and are comparable in quality with Seiki. We also provide technical knowhow and help to develop the recipe to our clients.

Business constraints :

In India there is a huge shortage of power supply. In order to get a sanction for additional power it takes six months or more. Our reactors can do LPHT treatment and there is no need for the rough to undergo HPHT processing. Our reactor patent is for LPHT (Color change from Brown to white ). The manufacturers using our machines don’t need to send their diamonds for HPHT processing.

For HPHT treatment a grower has to invest in expensive machinery/ HPHT press. The other option is to send the rough to other manufacturers. Our reactor can do both the process that save time and money.

Future prospects :

The global sale for lab grown diamonds has registered a growth of 40%. This is just the tip of an iceberg. America is the largest market today. As the other international markets and the domestic Indian markets open, there will be exponential growth

There is something special about Amreli district. Many prominent people from the diamond industry are the natives of either Amreli city or villages in its vicinity.

Some of them are:

1.Bakul bhai Limbasiya of Bhatwari group.

2.Govind bhai Dholakia of SRK group.

3.Padmashri Savji bhai Dholakia of Hari Krishna group.

4.Sambhubhai Vaviya of Devngi Gems.

5.Snehal Patel Dungrani of Bhanderi Lab Grown Diamonds.

6.Vasant bhai Gajera of Laxmi Diamonds.

In addition to the above, Dilip Shanghvi, the founder of Sun Pharma, one of the richest person in India also hails from Amreli.

Many of the diamontaires of Surat migrated in research of work as Amreli had limited business opportunity.

In order to provide employment to the people of their native place, they have set up Gem cutting and polishing industries in small towns such as Babra, Savar Kundla and Dhari . Several gold plating units have been set up in Bagasara city.

Devngi Gems has secured two patents in its business journey viz; a PRODUCT patent as well as a PROCESS patent. The first one was granted for the invention of Microwave Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition System and the process patent for the invention of PROCESS FOR CHANGING COLORED DIAMOND INTO A COLORLESS/FANCY COLOR DIAMOND BY ANNEALING USING MICROWAVE PLASMA ENHANCED CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION SYSTEM.

The grant of patent is a validation of our technical prowess in the intellectual property space. Many formalities and paperwork are involved. It requires a lot of persistence and patience to undergo audits and answer the technical queries that arise once an application is filed. The application for both the patents was filed at the same time. While the product patent took three years, the time required for the process patent was 5 years.

It is interesting to note that Element six a DeBeers group company had also applied for a patent in India in 2017. Devngi was allotted the patent based on the uniqueness of the reactor design.