This story is from October 18, 2016

Panna diamonds to go under the hammer today

Panna diamonds to go under the hammer today
(Representative image)
BHOPAL: In the backward region of Bundelkhand, poor villagers in Panna district may not be getting good crop yield annually, but some of them do dig out diamonds, for sure. So every year people in Panna, a large number of them poor, try their luck by taking annual lease of the 8x8 meter shallow diamond mines by simply depositing the fees of Rs 250 with the district administration.

In 2015, a 21-year-old farmer, whose crop had failed, hit a jackpot 12.93 carat diamond worth Rs 26 lakh.
Auction for about 320 carats of diamonds will start in Panna on Tuesday. Lady luck will smile again on some of those who had quarried diamonds in Panna's shallow mines. Two of them are real big and may fetch a price of Rs 10 and 5 lakh respectively.
"The diamond auction is going to be a week-long exercise and it takes place four times a year. About 75% people who participate in the bidding are local residents, while some come from places like Mumbai, Hyderabad and Surat," diamond officer Ratnesh Dixit told TOI over phone.
"This time the price of about 320 carat diamonds range from Rs 35 lakh to 50 lakh. They belong to all the three categories- gem quality, off colour and the black diamond for industrial use," he said.
Last year, 21-year-old, Anant Singh Yadav was perhaps, the youngest farmer to have mined a diamond worth Rs 26 lakh. The gem quality 12.93 carat diamond he mined was speculated to fetch a price of Rs 50 lakh. Almost for a year, when the diamond did not fetch the price fixed by the district administration, he himself purchased it from administration by paying a royalty of Rs 2.98 lakh.

"Whenever the diamond is auctioned, the government deposits the price in the owner's account after deducting 11.5 % royalty," the diamond officer said.
When the auction starts, all eyes will be on the two gem quality diamonds weighing 6.5 carat and 3.5 carat owned by Deendayal Verma and Manoj Jain, the two local residents and lease owners of the shallow mines.
"Not much is known about them, but they are ordinary citizens of Panna," the diamond officer said.
Though it is mandatory for every lease owner to deposit be diamonds to the office of diamond officer, not everybody does it.
Some people get big diamonds, some get small precious stones while some get ordinary stones.
In a controversy last year, local MLA and minister for PHED, Kusum Mehdele demanded an FIR against people who mined Rs 50 crore worth big diamond. She had even lodged a complaint to the chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
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