Kumar Bahukhandi
KIRA, the World’s Largest Grower and Manufacturer of CVD Lab-grown Diamonds, has won Highest Employment on Company Rolls at the 52nd India Gem & Jewellery Awards (IGJA), the award for the largest direct workforce in India’s gem and jewellery industry. At the same ceremony, the Lifetime Achievement Award, the industry’s highest personal honour, was conferred on Kira’s Founder – Shri Vallabhbhai Patel for 55 years in the diamond industry.
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Shri Vallabhbhai Patel, Founder, KIRA, receives the Lifetime Achievement Award, Shanay Parekh & Ashish Lakhani, Directors at KIRA receive the Highest Employment Award
Shri Vallabhbhai Patel, Founder, KIRA, receives the Lifetime Achievement Award from Shri Amit Shah, Hon’ble Union Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Cooperation, at the 52nd India Gem & Jewellery Awards. Shanay Parekh, Director, KIRA, receives the award for Highest Employment on Company Rolls at the same ceremony. Photo credit: GJEPC
Chief Guest at the ceremony Shri Amit Shah spoke at length about the Era of Labgrown Diamonds – “Ab lab-grown diamond ka zamana aane wala hai. The era of lab-grown diamonds is upon us, and I urge you not to focus merely on the price point. In terms of volume, the market for lab-grown diamonds is poised to expand to nearly 50 times the size of the current diamond market,”
“The time has come to change our scale. Speed alone will not do it. Change the scale and you will rise much higher,” he told the industry, adding that India should emerge as a founder industry in lab-grown diamonds, setting the category’s terms rather than following them, with Indian brands becoming global brands.
Lifetime Achievement Award: 55 years in diamonds – Founder of KIRA & Kiran Gems
Shri Vallabhbhai S. Patel has spent 55 years in diamonds. He was born into a cotton-farming family in a village of about five hundred people in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district and studied only to the fourth standard. In 1971 he took a job at a diamond-cutting workshop there. A venture of his own in 1978 failed and left him in debt; his father gave him the money to repay it, and in 1982 he moved his family to Bombay.
In 1985 he founded Kiran Gems with his brothers and built it into the world’s largest manufacturer of natural polished diamonds, a company that has won IGJA honours edition after edition.
In 2022, at the age of 65 – when most people retire, he founded KIRA. Four years on it is the world’s largest grower of lab-grown diamonds. He is the only person in the industry to have built the world’s largest company in both. At KIRA’s launch he set out its purpose in one line – “Har ghar Hira, har ghar KIRA.” i.e. A diamond in every home. “I have worked all my life on a diamond very few people in my village could ever own. A labgrown diamond changes that,” said Shri Vallabhbhai Patel, Founder, KIRA.
“In 2021 he said publicly that he would build a lab-grown diamond company and make it the largest in the world. Most of the trade was still deciding whether the category was real. He did it in four years. That is vision, and that is scale,” said Ashish Lakhani, Director, KIRA.
Highest Employment on Company Rolls: a company of more than 10,500 people
The award is measured on one number: how many people a company carries on its own rolls. KIRA has gone from 2,000 to more than 10,500 in roughly four years, the largest direct workforce of any company in India’s gem and jewellery industry. It is the measure on which GJEPC judged the award for 2025-26.
Planning, sawing, cutting, polishing, grading, certification, setting and despatch are all carried out in-house, each stage staffed by the company’s own employees. Nine of every ten of the world’s polished diamonds are cut in Surat, a figure the Minister cited in his address, and KIRA’s artisans work in that tradition.
Alongside the payroll, KIRA and the founding family support community development, women’s empowerment, hostel donations and the Kiran medical college and hospital.
“Our artisans and employees are the real gems behind KIRA. More than ten thousand of them built this company in four years, and everything we have achieved rests on their skill and their commitment. We are grateful to every one of them, and this award is theirs,” said Shanay Parekh, Director, KIRA.
“One in every three lab-grown diamonds in the world is cut by our people. Machines can grow a diamond. Only a skilled hand can finish one,” said Rajesh Lakhani, Founder, KIRA.
KIRA already runs the chain the Minister described
“I urge all of you to ensure that the entire ecosystem and manufacturing chain of lab-grown diamonds remains firmly in Indian hands: from making the machine to the moment the jewellery reaches a woman’s hand, the whole system should be in India’s control. You can do it. Surat and Mumbai have shown it,” the Minister said, noting that the Government of India, with the governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat, is bringing policy support to the sector.
KIRA : Growing, cutting, polishing, grading, certification and jewellery manufacturing all happen under one roof at KIRA’s one million sq ft facility in Surat, on the world’s largest fleet of CVD machines. The company runs 5,000+ growing machines and produces over 400,000 polished carats a month. One in every three lab-grown diamonds in the world comes from KIRA.
Production runs on 100 MW of captive solar, rising to 200 MW over the next two years. KIRA exports to 75+ countries and supplies over 6,000 clients worldwide, with 400,000+ certified stones live on its inventory portal.
Demand is moving quickly in the largest markets. In the United States, over 61 per cent of engagement rings now carry a lab-grown centre stone. Younger buyers ask where a stone came from and how it was made, and a fully traceable diamond grown on renewable power answers both questions. Affordability widens the market further: more people can own a diamond, in more sizes and more designs, than at any point in the trade’s history.
About KIRA
KIRA is the world’s largest grower and manufacturer of CVD lab-grown diamonds. It grows, cuts, polishes, grades and sets lab-grown diamonds under one roof at its one million sq ft facility in Surat, India, running 5,000+ CVD growing machines and over 400,000 polished carats a month on 100 MW of captive solar. KIRA exports to 75+ countries and supplies over 6,000 clients worldwide, with 400,000+ certified stones live and more than 10,500 people on company rolls. Channel Offices: Mumbai, Surat, Hong Kong, New York.
www.kiradiam.com | www.instagram.com/kiradiam
Notes for Editors
The event: The 52nd India Gem & Jewellery Awards were held on 13 September 2026 at the Bharat Diamond Bourse, Mumbai. First held in 1975, the awards recognise export performance, value addition, employment generation and R&D investment. The sector accounts for 6.3 per cent of India’s merchandise exports and supports around 75 lakh direct and indirect jobs. India processes over 90 per cent of the world’s cut and polished diamonds.
Dignitaries present: Shri Amit Shah, Hon’ble Union Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Cooperation (Chief Guest); Shri Devendra Fadnavis, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra; Shri Eknath Shinde, Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra; Shri Harsh Sanghavi, Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister of Gujarat; Adv. Ashish Shelar and Shri Mangal Prabhat Lodha, Ministers, Government of Maharashtra; Shri Govind Dholakia, MP, Rajya Sabha; Shri Kirit Bhansali, Chairman, GJEPC; Shri Anoop Mehta, President, Bharat Diamond Bourse; & others.
