Honours for KIRA at GJEPC’s 52nd IGJA, held on 13 September 2026 at the Bharat Diamond Bourse, Mumbai, with Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah as Chief Guest. KIRA is the first laboratory grown diamond company to be recognised for the highest employment on company rolls in India’s gem and jewellery industry.

KIRA, the world’s largest grower of CVD laboratory grown diamonds, was recognised for Highest Employment on Company Rolls at the 52nd India Gem & Jewellery Awards (IGJA), organised by the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC). At the same ceremony, the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Shri Vallabhbhai Patel, founder of KIRA and of Kiran Gems.

The awards were presented on 13 September 2026 at the Bharat Diamond Bourse, Mumbai. Shri Amit Shah, Hon’ble Union Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Cooperation, Government of India, attended as Chief Guest, joined by Shri Devendra Fadnavis, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra; Shri Eknath Shinde, Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra; Shri Harsh Sanghavi, Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister of Gujarat; and Shri Kirit Bhansali, Chairman, GJEPC.

The two awards are closely linked. Shri Vallabhbhai Patel began as a diamond cutter in Bhavnagar in 1971 and went on to build the world’s largest natural diamond manufacturer. Four decades later, the laboratory grown diamond company he founded employs more people on its rolls than any other company in the industry.

IGJA’s selection criteria weigh export performance, value addition, employment generation and investment in R&D across the financial year, assessed with Ernst & Young LLP as Knowledge Partner. India’s gem and jewellery exports recorded US$27.72 billion in FY 2025–26, broadly holding the previous year’s levels, and GJEPC has set a target of US$100 billion by 2040.

“Most awards in this industry recognise what a company has sold. This one recognises how many people it employs. More than ten thousand families in Surat have built this business, and this award belongs to them.” — Shanay Parekh, Director, KIRA

AWARD ONE — LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: SHRI VALLABHBHAI PATEL

Shri Vallabhbhai S. Patel was born into a cotton farming family in a village of some five hundred people in the Bhavnagar district of Gujarat. He studied to the fourth standard. In 1971 he took a job at a diamond cutting workshop in Bhavnagar and stayed seven years, returning to the family fields each monsoon.

In 1978 he started a small business of his own. It was unsuccessful and left him in debt. With seed money from his father he repaid it, and in 1982 he moved with his family from Bhavnagar to Bombay. His first home was in Borivali, and for ten years he travelled to work by train. He has since said that those years gave him an understanding of how working families live.

In 1985 he founded Kiran Gems in Mumbai with his brothers, Shri Babubhai S. Lakhani and Shri Mavjibhai S. Patel. The Government of India recognised the company as an Export House in 1996 and a Trading House in 1999. Kiran Gems went on to become the world’s largest manufacturer of natural polished diamonds and one of India’s highest taxpaying companies, the highest in the diamond industry.

Under his leadership Kiran Gems became one of the most decorated names at these awards, taking IGJA honours year after year. At this year’s 52nd edition Kiran Gems won seven Rank 1 awards, including Highest Exporter of Cut & Polished Diamonds (Large) for the seventeenth time. He has consistently credited the company’s team for these results.

He later committed to laboratory grown diamonds at a time when much of the trade remained undecided about them, and founded KIRA. In approximately four years it has become the world’s largest grower of CVD laboratory grown diamonds, operating 5,000 reactors, producing more than 400,000 polished carats a month and employing the largest direct workforce in the industry.

The intention behind it was the one he began with: that a diamond should not be available only to those few who can afford one. His motto for KIRA is one line –

“Har ghar hira, har ghar KIRA.” — a diamond in every home.

“I have worked all my life on a stone that very few people in my village could ever own. A grown diamond changes that. If a diamond can reach every home, so does the work that goes into it.” — Shri Vallabhbhai Patel, Founder, KIRA

“Vallabhbhai is a leader and a legend in this industry. When he speaks, people listen. He has vision, and he has the ability to build that vision at a scale nobody else here can match.” — Rajesh Lakhani, Founding Partner, KIRA Diam LLP

“He continues to visit the factory floor and to ask the questions a cutter would ask. After fifty-five years in the trade, the standard we work to is still the one he sets.” — Ashish Lakhani, Director, KIRA

AWARD TWO — HIGHEST EMPLOYMENT ON COMPANY ROLLS

As laboratory grown diamonds began to scale in India, a common concern was the effect on employment. It was widely argued that a diamond grown in a reactor would require fewer workers than one recovered from a mine, and that Surat’s workforce would be affected.

KIRA’s experience has been different. Growing is only the first stage of manufacturing. Each stone must still be planned, sawn, cut, polished, graded, certified, set and shipped, and every one of those stages is carried out by an employee on the company’s rolls in Surat. In approximately four years, KIRA has grown to 10,500+ employees on company rolls — on the measure assessed by GJEPC, the largest direct workforce in India’s gem and jewellery industry.

Growth over the four years to 2026:

CVD reactors …………….. 1,000 to 5,000

Certified CVD diamonds ……. 100k to 400k+

Employees on company rolls … 2,000 to 10,500+

Facility ………………… 1 million sq ft, Surat

Captive solar ……………. 100 MW

Countries served …………. 75+

EMPLOYMENT AT KIRA

1) Local hiring: Employees are drawn from Surat and the surrounding districts of Gujarat. Housing support, a company hospital and a medical college operate alongside the payroll.

2) Women in the workforce: Grading, sorting, certification and setting are the company’s fastest growing functions, and for many women in the district they represent a first formal job.

3) Employment on company rolls: The award counts employees on company rolls rather than contract labour. Manufacturing is SMETA audited and Sedex registered.

4) Training: CVD growing and reactor maintenance are relatively new trades in India. The majority of the technical workforce was trained on site.

FOR EDITORS — LAB GROWN DIAMONDS AT THE CEREMONY

Shri Amit Shah, Hon’ble Union Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Cooperation, Government of India, was Chief Guest at the 52nd IGJA and devoted a substantial part of his address to laboratory grown diamonds.

He said that India has “the necessary infrastructure, skills, capital and capable entrepreneurs”, and that the country should prepare so that “the entire ecosystem and the complete manufacturing value chain for lab-grown diamonds are in the hands of the Indians” — covering the manufacture of the machines, the growing of the diamonds, jewellery manufacturing, Indian brands and showrooms in cities around the world.

He described an emerging era for laboratory grown diamonds, said that the scale of operations must change rather than only the pace of work, and indicated that appropriate policies would follow in support.

KIRA’s operations sit across that value chain today. Growing, cutting, polishing, grading and jewellery manufacturing are carried out under one roof in Surat, on 100 MW of captive solar, by 10,500+ employees on company rolls, and the output is sold to the trade in 75+ countries. The full address, along with further reporting on the evening, is widely available online.

“We must prepare ourselves in such a way that the entire ecosystem and the complete manufacturing value chain for lab-grown diamonds are in the hands of the Indians.”

— Shri Amit Shah, Hon’ble Union Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Cooperation, at the 52nd IGJA