Law to mark out real and lab-made diamonds likely

Chennai: The government is working on making necessary changes to the Consumer Protection Act 1986 in order to distinguish between synthetic diamonds and natural diamonds. This is intended to address the growing concerns of consumers over cheaper lab-grown diamonds getting passed off as expensive natural diamonds.

"In a recent visit to Russia, the issue of having separate HS code for rough synthetic diamonds at national level was discussed at length with the Russian side. The discussion also took place on national legislation and how India is working on making necessary changes to Consumer Protection Act 1986 to align itself with the demands of the industry,' said Alok Vardhan Chaturvedi, who is Director General of the Foreign Trade (DGFT) and current Kimberley Process Chair while addressing KP's inter-sessional meeting of KP.

The government has set out a detailed agenda. It has been circulated. "We shall have the presentations by the Working Group Chairs and other presentations. We shall also have special forums on Diamond Terminolo-gy, Artisanal Mining and how to make collective programmes work," he added.

Cheaper synthetic diamonds being passed off as natural diamonds is a matter of concern for the consumers. Last year, the country had witnessed unprecedented growth in the imports of synthetic diamonds. Several cases of synthetic diamond- studded jewellery being sold to consumers as natural diamond jewellery also were reported.

Last year itself, the Kimberley Process Plenary adopted the Administrative Decision on the use of Unified Diamond Nomenclature and Terminology as a Best Practice that is based on the industry's Diamond Terminology Guidelines. This was intended to address the concerns of the diamond industry regarding the need for separation of diamond and synthetics markets on the global scale and to give the Kimberley Process participants information on the concerns and best practices that exist in the industry today.