RAKING RICHES
How Surat has achieved importance in the international markets
Take any early morning or late evening train to Surat, and businessmen and executives will be a majority of the passengers travelling with you. In fact, Surat has been attracting merchants for centuries with its status of being a well-connected port. Strategically positioned on Gujarat’s west coast, on the banks of river Tapti, from being a centre for spice trade, it later evolved to one for textiles.
The tier-II industrial city has some 450 textiles mills, and in recent decades has unexpectedly also become the world’s centre for cut and polished diamonds. Of all the polished diamonds that are in circulation around the world, 93 per cent of them are bought from India; and of these 93 per cent, 99 per cent are cut and polished in Surat alone. All my chats, from the taxi driver to the industrialists, invariably stirred up this interesting statistic, which the Surtis, as they call themselves, make it a point to mention with pride.
They might also mention that “a million moons ago”, India’s rivers — Godavari and Krishna — carried traces of alluvial stone deposits, and perhaps hint at the presence of diamond mines. The verity of this is ambiguous, for the industry itself gives credit to an anonymous businessman who brought with him rough diamonds and a boat full of polishers from East Africa in 1901.
However, the real diamond trade began in Surat only in the 1960s when entrepreneurs started importing rough diamonds from Burma with a serious intent to establish an industry. The current market imports from Africa, Australia, Canada and Russia. According to Dinesh Navadiya, President, Surat Diamond Association (SDA), “Those who used to visit Burma to buy wood, brought back raw diamonds. Acknowledging an opportunity here, skilled farm labourers from Gujarat’s Saurashtra belt flocked to Surat who adopted, studied and eventually mastered the skill of diamond polishing.”
Govind Dholakia, Founder and Chairman, Sri Ramkrishna Exports Pvt Ltd (SRK) was once a farmhand before he moved to the city to polish diamonds. He tells me, “It wasn’t surprising that enterprising farmers took to the work. In comparison to working the fields 14 hours a day in 40 degrees Celsius, logging in as much time polishing stones in a cool room is easier.”
With time, these acquired skills have become an asset not only to the world but to the workers as well, who are well paid. In addition, since most of them hail from Surat’s surrounding rural areas, many diamond processors have set up floors there. Being closer to their homes has tempted women to learn the skill too, and in the bargain, has created jobs for the female population, contributing to additional income per household.
While it seems like the growing diamond industry is defining Surat’s rapid progress, it is still textiles, Surat’s oldest industry that is leading as a contributor to the city’s GDP. It was in 1861 that the first textile mill was established here. The growing numbers of these mills can be linked to the abundance of black soil in Gujarat, which has helped cotton farms culminate into surplus yields year after year.
Today the industry’s daily turnover alone is approximately ₹ 100 crores. “80 per cent of our production is sold solely in India,” says Sanjay Jagnani, Director, Federation of Surat Textile Traders Association. “This is because the kind of clothes we make — saris, and dress material for traditional salwar-kameez — are largely sought-after by Indians.” Locally, their primary market is in North India — Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh; and internationally, countries like Mauritius, Nepal, UAE and South Africa that have a large number of Indian migrants are the bigger importers.
Synthetic textiles are their key produce, and these are traded in from a dedicated district in Surat. It has been methodically planned such that all of its two-square-kilometre area holds 125 buildings with a total of 50,000 traders. A market in the true sense, halfway into the square I was caught in an atypical pandemonium. Just as I prepared myself for a tiring wait in an unsightly jam, the traffic police effortlessly eased the flow almost immediately.
Now traffic police aren’t positioned everywhere in Surat as they typically should be. Instead, CCTV cameras around the city do a good job of disciplining its drivers, lest they wish to be clicked and ticketed. In the last year, the rapid construction of 30 flyovers — more than built in any other Indian metropolis within the same timeframe — have reduced jams considerably, and have even seen Surat tagged as the “flyover city”.
Each morning, thousands add to Surat’s population of approximately five million people, and are most likely to leave the same night. These are primarily traders for textiles and diamonds. Surat’s 24-hours railway station is an important hub, from where a train departs every 20-minutes on an average. The city’s airport used to receive two full flights from New Delhi and one from Mumbai, daily. Then the November 2014 incident of an airplane running into a feral buffalo reduced this to just one Air India flight that arrives from New Delhi at 0920 hours and departs for the capital at 0950 hours on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Around this time, a couple of months ago, Dholakia, whose company’s turnover crosses ₹ 500 crore, decided to invest ₹ 30 crore collectively in a passenger airline company with three other diamond businessmen. They revived Ventura Air Connect and bought two nine-seater and one four-seater aircraft. As of now, the nine-seater flights takeoff for Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Bhuj in the mornings and evenings. In case of a rise in demand, they will then expand operations to other Gujarat cities and eventually other Indian states. Once every three months, there may even be a flight to Mumbai, but this is undecided. “The idea is to get people used to the convenience of and realise the necessity of air travel to and from the city.”
When commuting within Surat, the economically conscious depend on auto-rickshaws because of a dearth of buses. The middle class and higher strata usually own cars and if you are doubtful of parking and have several meetings planned, car hire using private companies is the better option, since Surat lacks government-run taxis. Car rental is a minimum of eight-hours/80km, but some companies do offer cars for half that time and offer rates based on distance on request ( savaari.com, suratcarrentals.com, clearcarrental.com).
It is true that Surat is spread across 326.52-squarekilometre. However, don’t let this cloud your judgement when calculating travel time. Flyovers and wide roads have made it easy to move from one end of the city to another within minutes and the distance gauge matches the speed, thanks to its structured success.
There aren’t many sightseeing opportunities apart from Dumas Beach and lavishly flavoured foods. The only kind of tourism making its way to Surat is medical. These patients are non-resident Gujaratis settled abroad, who coordinate their surgery dates with their annual hometown visits. The reason behind this is that the treatment costs at Surat’s state-of-theart-hospitals are 70 per cent cheaper when compared to international rates and are conducted by superiorly skilled doctors. This is yet another contribution to Surat’s opulent future and present “inflated” GDP.
With an unemployment rate below one per cent, the denizens truly believe that there is enough opportunity, and scope for all to come into good money. Real estate developers insist that this is the city to invest in for long term fiscal benefits. Of course, this growth spurt has received plaudits and has rightfully been accorded the India Today Best City Awards 2014 for being the best economically emerging city. ■