Still fighting but will win

Mr.Vedant Jatia, S/o Mr.Vijay Jatia owner of great Institute Indian Institute of Jewellery.Their organisation is a premier institute in India to impart professional course on jewellery, designing training to marketing. Their institute has recognition not only in India but from most countries in Jewellery map of world. They thought in 2005 to be associated with other company to diversify their business. So they united with Mr.Mehul Choksi. Mehul Choksi is the name in domestic India today.He is the Chief of Gitanjali group. The group owns most jewellery brands India. He started brands with purchasing one license from Internationally famous Damas group. He named the brand as D'damas in India. Gradually during last NDA regime his business flourished like anything.As I have discussed in my last blog,this industry blossoms with policy at the Center. At that 7 years time gold prices even dipped from Rs.5000 considerably remained below for 7 years most period of time. India was waiting for a brand in jewellery.Most FMCG brands from pin,shirt,toothpaste and Chawanprash had brands in India.Jewellery is one sector where ancient ideas prevailed. So people jumped into brande jewellery.Authenticity of diamond with certifications cleared the doubt from end customers. D'damas got huge success.Gradually Mr.Choksi bagged other international brands like Nakshatra,Asmi. A domestic player Sangvi Exports took cue from success in brands and launched their own brand Sangini.Mr.Choksi did not waste much time,when he saw one competitor is coming up,he purchased that brand as well. So NDA regime produced a milestone in successful endeavor of industrialisation. Brnaded jewellery came & conquered India until the devil "Manmohan" came.

The most crucial factor in branded Jewellery is the stability of gold price. Since price of gold varies manufacturer has to keep 1-2% variable in pricing,while deciding MRP. Since that stability remained brands took off in NDA regime. I have written in my last blog how Manmohan categorically destroyed that stability of Gold market by simple one wrong decision of connecting gold to global markets. From Rs.5000 it reached to Rs.23000 in this 7 years of Manmohan's time. Not single quarter of any year showed any sort of stability and total industry crushed. An industry which was giving employment to lakhs of people started to take away jobs. As an investor one had to look alternatives to survive so everybody searched for alternatives. Tremendous infighting within the industry broke. Jatias broke away from Gitanjali. Gitanjali sacked their marketing consultant Mr.Jagdeep Kapoor of Samsika.Jagdeep Kapoor in turn got associated with Hare Krishna group and launched new brand in west called "Kisna". The initial emergence of "Kisna" hit Gitanjali hard in their belly as well. But their initial emergence also proved to be short lived.Hare Krishna and Gitanjali continued to go down.

But most interestingly no barons of jewellery industry could not assess the reason of their decline. You can not blame on them as industry is new. Glaxo & others giants proved in FMCG that establishing brands take hundred years in the middle of adversity. You will remember one movie of Akshay Kumar.The film was Welcome. One of the chief promoter of the film was M Suresh group. Their brand "Adora" was shown repeatedly in the film when Akshay was doing usual filmy stuff. The brand which showed much promise in pricing and design fell hard badly. When money inflow gots restricted in every unit,they starts fighting themselves to get their money back. That group is locked in legal battle and still continuing digging their graveyard. They started venturing out from their business but never questioned Government to change their policy.

Investors inability to send strong message to power Center was linked to Goverment's link with underworld. Government tried to hide their failure and generated a sense of fear by organising blasts 3 times in short period of time. Jatias got back to their old buisness,Gitanjali gave attention to software,MSuresh virtually changed their office to US.Small industris starting and closing their brnads.Only Tatas survived as they had "Radia" connection with the government. In the middle of battle lakhs of quality workers found gasping. The industry, which showed much promise and having great prospect, is in ICU.Fighting for life.

This years IIJS will commence on 4th August in Mumbai.Usual glare of Jewellery will be there but behind the scene the sad tune will continue to play.Who are killing our colleagues? Who is making jobless? How long one Economist PM will take to understand the key issue. We should find the answer resist underworld intention to shift our headquarter to Dubai.We should force Government to free themselves from underworld and provide stability to the price of Gold. Jewellery Industry is the most promising industry today,we will have fight for survival and defeat "Manmohan" intention.