The gem appraisers at the training course

Curriculum: Diamond grading and pricing, gemstones identification, jewellery testing, jewellery design

Students: Customs officers

Course duration: Three months

Classroom: SinGem (Bhowanipore, Salt Lake, Sovabazar)

Course fee: Rs 5,000

Sponsor: Government?s Manikanchan gem and jewellery park

USP: First-of-its-kind gem session for eastern India?s jewellery gatekeepers

Under-declaration ? not of cable count but of carat value ? may not be the passport to easy profits any more.

For, Customs officials trained at Manikanchan, Salt Lake, are now better equipped to appraise the true value and gradation of diamonds or any other precious stone coming into or leaving the country.

?Last year, we were appointed by the Union ministry of commerce to train Customs officers in jewellery appraisal,? says Richa Srimal, CEO, SinGem, whose family has been in the gem and jewellery trade for around 100 years. ?Any piece of jewellery entering or leaving the country through Calcutta has to be evaluated at Manikanchan. Our brief was to train Customs officials in detecting any understatement of the value of jewellery,? she adds.

The three-month course gives candidates an insight into jewellery evaluation ? diamond and gems identification, grading, pricing and testing. ?We are not professional jewellers who will be able to identify every jewellery item, but our job demands intensive scrutiny of jewellery. The course was very comprehensive and taught us everything, from the chemical properties to the shape and cuts of a gemstone,? says J.B. Dutta, an appraising official, who attended the course at Manikanchan.

The focus is on diamonds. ?Diamonds form 80 per cent of the country?s total jewellery export. And one has to have a pair of specially-trained eyes to identify the various technicalities of a diamond,? explains Srimal.

The grading of diamond involves the 4Cs ? the cut, the colour, the clarity and the carat.

?It is mandatory to have some technical knowledge of diamonds in order to evaluate them,? says Srimal. The other aspects of the course include grading and identification of gemstones and jewellery testing.

This SinGem course also includes jewellery designing. Manikanchan procures gold from the Reserve Bank of India and processes it into jewellery. It then sends the items out to procure orders. For this, some officials must learn jewellery designing.

?Though we have not trained a single official in this subject, Manikanchan is quite keen to pursue it in the near future,? says Srimal.

Classes for the first batch of Customs officials were held at the SinGem school in Bhowanipore. The new hub, close to City Centre, awaits a fresh batch.