March 22: The Mumbai Customs department will once again make efforts today (March 23) to dispose of around Rs 60 crore worth of diamonds that it had confiscated over the past few decades. The first auction, after a gap of 20 years, was held on March 5.For various reasons, this maiden effort in auctioning diamonds had met with a poor response. Bids were placed only for around Rs 50,000 worth of stones.The department has to sell these diamonds before March 31 to help the government meet its revenue deficit."If the goods are not auctioned fully by March 31, we may seek further instructions from the government and review the pricing if necessary," said THK Ghauri, assistant commissioner (disposals) and in-charge of the diamond auction.
According to Ghauri,``these cut and polished diamonds are of prime quality for which the minimum offer price is around Rs 1 lakh per carat. Such goods are more useful for merchant exporters and not traders who scantily participated in the first auction. We have madepersonalised marketing efforts in the diamond trade and are hopeful of getting a better response from actual users of the goods.'' The total value of the diamonds, when cut and polished, could be ``well over Rs 100 crore,'' Ghauri said. A six-member valuation committee comprising four experts from the trade and two from the customs department (assistant commissioner NK Sharma and Sanjay Devalvar) had evaluated the prices of the stock of precious stones before putting them up for auction.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
