gold scavengers
We have in India gold scavengers, whose sole task is to clean up workshops of goldsmiths and recover the minute particles of the precious metal after separating them from dust, says Pheroze Kharegat

Some jewellers collect gold dust from their shops and sell it to wholesale buyers for lakhs of rupees Photo: MF

Alothaim Jewellery Factory of Saudi Arabia produces four tonnes of gold every month. Its losses were about 10 kg per tonne in the 1990s, as the gold dust created during jewellery manufacturing floats about and gets lodged in the walls and ground of the factory.

India imported 832 tonnes of gold in 2010, out of which 792 tonnes were used for making jewellery. If the loss in the well-organised Alothaim factory was 10 kg per tonne, the Indian loss in the not-so-well organized 4 lakh jewellery workshops of India, spread out from remote Kerala villages to the fabulous Zaveri Bazaar of Mumbai, would be at least as much as 7920 kg of gold, or nearly eight tonnes of gold (conservatively at 2.8 million rupees per kg). The cost would be about Rs 2218 crore. A large jewellery factory in India has calculated that it loses up to 3 kg of gold per year through workers breathing in gold dusts whilst working. This, however, is very small compared to the other sources of losses during jewellery manufacture.

One wishes that we had the foresight of Alothaim company, which took the expertise of 60-year-old Tennessee-educated postgraduate Amit Mehta, who had started a gold loss management firm, which helped the firm recover the gold. Earlier, Amit Mehta had helped the Ahmedabad firm of RB Jewellers to recover 30 kg of gold out of the 3 tonnes sweepings of this jewellery factory accumulated over the years.

Over the last decade and a half, Mehta has made his mark in the sphere of gold loss management. He is a consultant for several firms and companies that need to check their loss and retrieval processes.

More Amit Mehtas are needed for the Indian jewellery industry. But from time immemorial, or at least the last 2000 years, we have in India, special tribes/castes known as gold scavengers, whose sole task has been to clean up on a contract basis the workshops and even the frontage and gutters of Indian goldsmith establishments and recover the minute particles of gold after cleaning the kilos of dust.

They are called Kadaiwallas in Bengal, Sondaryas in Jharkand and Nehariyas in other parts of North India. In different parts of India they have different caste names. Their total population is not known, as it is dwindling, when, due to high cost gold, the goldsmiths meticulously ensure that as little gold is lost, and the gold scavengers find that they have to drift to other professions. For example, in Ratan Pol Jewellery Market of Ahmedabad, Ganga Gohel used to get Rs 6,000 for sweeping three streets for gold twice a day. Gohel is a dhul-dhoya, literally dust-washer in Gujarati. She is one of around 200 people who used to comb Manek Chowk and Ratan Pol, which have more than 5,000 jewellery manufacturing units, shops and bullion trading houses. Sorry to say that nowadays Ganga Gohel and her other co-workers find it difficult to make it profitable as dhul-dhoyas.

"Some jewellers collect dust from their shops for years and then sell it directly to wholesale buyers for lakhs of rupees," says Hiren Soni, who owns a jewellery shop in Sheth Ni Pol. "Wholesale buyers of dust also buy old cushions, doormats and carpets from us and pay us a lump sum, which runs into thousands of rupees. Not only do they pay for such items, from which they hope to extract gold dust, they also replace them with new ones."

In the wee hours of the mourning, when Bowbazaar, Kolkata’s jewellery mart area, settles down to sleep, Kadaiwalas, a generic name for the gold scavengers, descend on its streets in search of gold. They have done it for untold years. Armed with brooms, sieves and brass bowls, they scour the dingy lanes lined on either side with poky jewellery shops. Their fate spins on a catch of gold dust or gold particles that are either carried on the garments of the goldsmiths or waft out into the dust with the wind. They, the gold sweepers, belong to the Nehariya community — basically Muslims. They migrated from Agra and adjoining parts of Uttar Pradesh to Calcutta a century ago to eke out an existence. The hauls are richest during the festive seasons like the pooja season, or during months considered auspicious for marriage. Shops bristle with orders and goldsmiths work round the clock. But for most of the time, the work is painful and monotonous, and nowadays the reward is less than Rs 1000 a week.

They finish their job before the normal thoroughfare begins and jewellery shops are opened, as the owners will do the customary cleaning of the floor space in front of the shops, and that would reduce the chances of pickings. Each group then meets at a place and minutely inspects the dust in the bowls to assess the quantum of gold in it. Next, they wash off the dust, and the left out matter is processed with a mercury compound, which automatically separates the gold, and sell the pickings to middlemen. — MF