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Rajkot: Rain washes away jobless diamond artisans' last hope

RAJKOT: It’s a double whammy for hundreds of diamond artisans who had returned to their native places in Saurashtra from recession-hit Surat diamond industry .


Most of them come back as they had either lost their jobs or faced massive salary cuts and had planned to take up their traditional occupation of farming.

Initially, they were sanguine about good harvest due to rain bounty, but the extended monsoon and wet weather aggravated by three back-to-back cyclones have left their cops damaged so much so that many have started burning the crop as it is not even usable as cattle feed.

Janak Patel, who returned his native Abharampar village of Savarkundla taluka in Amreli district before three months, told TOI, “I had cultivated groundnut in 27 bighas. I could reap just 600 kg that too of inferior quality even though I had expected 600 kg in each bigha. The crop is so badly damaged that even cattle refuse to eat it.”

Farmers forced to burn their crop

Patel had lost his job in the diamond unit where he earned Rs 25,000 per month. He has left his two children back in Surat so that their studies are not affected.

Kamal Patel of the same village has met a similar fate. “I had cultivated groundnut and cotton in 10 bighas each and entire crop has been destroyed due to inclement weather. I have no choice but borrow money now to sustain my family.”

In the last seven to eight months, at least 15,000 diamond workers have been rendered jobless in Surat.

Bhautik Patel of Krushnagadh village in Amreli, “Farming was my only hope after losing job in Surat. But my entire groundnut crop has been damaged in rain.”

Situation is equally grim in Junagadh, Jamnagar and Devbhumi Dwarka where farmers have booked huge losses and started destroying the crop.

Pancha Chudasama, a farmer of Osa village in Mangrol taluka of Junagadh, said, “I had no option but to burn the entire crop because it’s not even fit to be fed to the cattle.”

Babu Kher of Mankhetra village in Mangrol taluka added, “Rain has badly affected my crop. There is no point paying for labour and transport charges to take the crop to market yard, so I torched it in the field itself.”

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