The Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) has launched an operation to discover which diamond factories in Surat are manufacturing synthetic stones.



The move follows the alarm expressed in the global diamond industry in recent months over undisclosed lab-created diamonds being sold with natural melee stones, including in India.



The GJEPC has appointed global management consulting firm A T Kearney and De Beers brokers Bonas & Co. to assist in the project of "establishing the current status, and to prepare a framework/guideline for the industry members to trade in natural and synthetic diamonds,” according to The Times of India.



A Natural Diamond Monitoring Committee (NDMC) has also been created, including bodies such as the Bharat Diamond Bourse (BDB), the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF) and the Mumbai Diamond Merchants' Association (MDMA), to take vital decisions pertaining to synthetic diamonds.



Industry sources said experts from Mumbai have been in Surat in recent days with the aim of uncovering the scale of synthetic diamond production and how they are mixed with natural diamond parcels.



A senior GJEPC official said, "We have sent a team of experts to Surat to find out units manufacturing synthetic diamonds. The manufacturers would be quizzed on various points. A detailed report will be submitted to the Natural Diamond Monitoring Committee (NDMC)."