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| Sunday, 27 March 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Gem mining : Luck and hard work by Don Asoka Wijewardena What is discovered becomes the property of the nation, under the purview of the National Gem and Jewellery Authority (NGJA). A typical example is the Paradise Estate (between Kuruwita and Ratnepura), about 55 km west and south of Colombo.
The NGJA divides the mining grounds here into quarter-acre lots, and sells the right to mine them for a year through an auction. A quarter-acre concession might be sold for Rs. 180,000 to Rs. 450,000, but can run higher depending on the demand and location. The buyers are obviously gem traders, and gem merchants with retail shops of their own. Gem mining is a venture in the hand of the Gods. The concessionaire hires a crew, and upon due consultation with his astrologers - begins a pit. The illama might be a few feet from the surface; it might go down 60 Ft. The gravel may have nothing in it but worthless stones, it may turn out to be a flawless star sapphire worth millions. The miners take their chances along with the concessionaire, they work on shares, dividing amongst themselves 5-10 percent of the value of the uncut stones they find.
The men above empty the baskets and drop them back in one motion, with the practised rhythm and jugglers. They wash away clay and sand and sluice the gravel down into larger pools - where other miners, 'pan' the gravel in larger baskets and sift them for gemstones. By 10.00 a.m. the temperature in the minefield can be 32 centigrade (90F) and still climbing. The deep pits are roofed with thatch to provide some shelter from the merciless sun, and shored with hand-hewn timbers, the spaces in between packed with branches to hold the clay. Some of the pits have lateral tunnels, deep underground. The miners' work by candlelight, with a rubber hose to feed them air, for hours at a time. The pit boss, who draws a double share of the profits, stays below in these narrow, perilous tunnels all day. In many gemming areas traditional methods are still used. Gems are found on the surface of the alluvial soil, in the gravel of riverbeds, and in the layers of course graces that lie at the bottom of alluvial deposits. Pits of varying depth are sunk, the gravel found and excavated. An important process is the ridding of mud pebbles. For this, the gravel is washed in water, then heavier stones containing gems are collected. This part of the country has two rainy seasons, and the pits can only be worked for six months. Over the course of the year, a lucky miner might make the equivalent of Rs. 270,000, that's a better wages than most. And who knows? One day there in the gravel might be the stone that will make him rich enough overnight to buy a concession of his own. The miners - as young as 16, as old as 60 smile a lot in the scorching sun. The concessionaire keeps a supervisor at the pit, mainly to see that the miners turn over everything they find. In some cases,the concessionaire has the stones cut and polished in his own workshops and sells them the rough stones at auctions to other dealers. The NGJA regulates mining, cutting and trading of gems; no one can work in the industry without a licence. "The NGJA does not have lands for mining, but anyone possessing lands in the Sabaragamuwa province (Ratnapura and Kegalle districts) can apply to the NGJA for a licence for gemming. We have also stipulated some conditions for the miners to strictly adhere to prevent possible environmental damages," says Director General of NGJA, T. Piyadasa. It's not unknown, however, for concessionaire and miners to make unrecorded sales to small-scale independent traders. These middlemen pay someone to cut the stones, and sell them - sometimes without a licence - at very little margin to the shops. A shop might then mark up such a stone as 600 per cent of its value before selling it to an unsuspecting tourist - who still gets it at a fraction of what he would have to pay at home. `One important aspect of the authority's work, however, is to maintain the credibility of the industry. If you buy a gem from any merchant in Sri Lanka, the NGJA will inspect it free of charge - and prosecute the seller if it is fake. The NGJA is directly involved in the gem trade, and claims exclusive rights to all river dredging operations in the country - where the gem gravel is simply raked up from the river bottoms with long-handled hoes. Private dealers have more variety to offer, but the NGJA has generally fair prices - and an image as a government agency that buyers feel they can trust. Another function of the NGJA is to train gemmologists, jewellery designers and cutters. The government policy is to hold down capital investments in the gem industry, to avoid unemployment and focus instead on intermediate technology. But it has a training program in machine cutting (lapidary). Even so, most cutters learn their trade in the traditional way, as apprentices in small family workshops. It's like witnessing a miracle, to hold a sapphire with hundred facets, and realise that it has been cut entirely by hand. The rough stone is mounted at the end of a wooden grip with sealing wax; the artisan turns his primitive cutting wheel with a bowstring wrapped around the shaft,and presses the stone against it. Sapphire and rubies are cut on an iron wheel, and polished on copper. A cutter trains for about three years, gradually from moonstone rounded on a hard wood wheel to intricate work on semi-precious stone like tourmalines, gametes and topazes. The techniques of cutting and mining in Sri Lanka have remained essentially the same for many years. King Soloman had gems brought from Sri Lanka for the Queen of Sheba. The 'Star of India' in the museum of National History in New York, the most famous star sapphire in the world, is misnamed. It was found in Sri Lanka. The State Gem Corporation was established in 1971 and later renamed as National Gem and Jewellery Authority in 1993. Some miners who are obsessed by fear of unemployment are asking the concessionaires not to use heavy machinery like excavators for gemming. When asked about their objection to modern technology, they said: In general about six or seven people work in a gem pit and earn a daily living but what happens is that we may lose our jobs as the excavator is operated only by two men. It can also cause ecological damage, especially to rivers whenever large-scale excavations are carried out. According to NGJA Exports Manager Ajith Perera, there has been a significant increase of gem, jewellery, diamond, diamond jewellery and geuda exports since 2000. NGJA statistics show a 47 per cent increase of gem exports, 30 per cent increase of jewellery exports, 18 per cent of diamond exports, 37 per cent increase of diamond jewellery and 2 per cent increase of geuda exports in 2004 than 2003.
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| Produced by Lake House |
The estate encompasses a rubber plantation and as you drive through the
eerie silver green of the rubber trees, you suddenly come across a land that
is scraped away, crated and gauged as far as the eye can see, as though an
enormous catastrophe had occurred. 
Sri Lanka's gem industry, which values 17 varieties of precious and
semi-precious stones, relies on hard work and luck. This is not the easiest
way to make a living. The miners in the pit chop out the wet clay and illama
with a mattock, pile it in small wicker baskets, and toss them up in relays
to the surface. 
