Smart Skills
A chance to shine
Usha Albuquerque

The vanity industry is booming, thanks to increasing disposable incomes and greater exposure to international influences. Jewellery is one area where the shine has grown into a sparkle.

The whopping 42.23 per cent growth in jewellery exports has leveraged India to a major position in the jewellery business internationally. Gems and jewellery exports is the second major foreign exchange earner for the country. In the diamond business, India has already stolen a march over Belgium, the international diamond centre for years.

Adding dazzle to this exciting field is the fact that trained professionals have now entered the fray, and designs and materials are changing
— certainly lending an attractive glitter to career prospects in the field.

Work in this field involves the two complementary areas of gems and jewellery. Jewellery-making covers design, manufacture and marketing of jewellery items. Jewellery houses and export companies employ designers to create new designs, or adapt old ones to ensure greater marketing prospects. Manufacture involves the identification, testing, grinding and polishing of gems to be used on the jewellery item. The actual making process of the metal is mainly mechanised at most large jewellery manufacturing units. Here, jewellery samples are made and moulded in rubber moulds, and the cavities filled with wax. Then the embedding and de-waxing is done, and the molten metal poured in and fired in a blast furnace, after which the final product emerges.

Marketing of jewellery is another new area for professionals. Those handling the marketing of jewellery, particularly the precious, semi-precious and costume jewellery have to be aware of fashion trends both in the international and domestic market.

Gemmology is essentially a scientific and technical field dealing with the study of gemstones. Gemmologists are required to be highly skilled to identify, sort and grade diamonds, precious and semi-precious stones and to establish the weight, size, form and other related aspects. They may also be required to identify the treatment which may have to be given to modify the colour or appearance of the gemstones.

Other professionals in the field include gem grinders, who grind the stones to the required size and shape; gem-polishers and sorters who polish and sort and select the gems, as well as jewel-setters who set the gemstones according to the designs, and engravers who engrave or emboss ornamental designs or letters on jewellery, and so on.

Jewellery design is another area which requires great imagination and innovation.

There are several institutions offering training in gemmology and jewellery designing. The National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) at New Delhi and its other centres, offers a four-year undergraduate programme in accessory design/ jewellery design. This course is for those who have completed plus two or its equivalent. SNDT Women's University, Mumbai, also offers a jewellery design course for school passouts, as does the Gems and Jewellery Export promotion Council, Jaipur. There are also short duration courses in gemmology, including jewellery casting, pearl identification, diamond grading and valuation, etc at the Gemmology Institute of India, Mumbai. The Department of Geology at St Xavier's College, Mumbai, offers a 6-month diploma course in gemmology and diamond grading,

Training in basic jewellery making, gem cutting and stone setting is also being provided by the Jewellery Product Development centre, New Delhi, and the Small Industries Service Institute, Chennai.

Although the manufacture of jewellery is the largest area requiring trained personnel, many jewellery houses are now employing designers too, for designing products that can cater to the current international demand. With the entry of private corporate organisations into this sector, and foreign jewellery companies, there is a growing trend of the recruitment of professionals into a sector that was widely perceived as family-owned and managed.

In recent years, various public sector trading corporations too, such as Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation and the State Trading Corporation have got involved in the marketing and export of jewellery and hire trained professionals, including MBAs and jewellery designers.

The writer is a noted career expert