Digvijay Singh, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, laid the foundation stone for a diamond park in Panna district on Saturday.
"The park complex will nestle 40 state-of-the-art diamond processing establishments, capable of processing up to 45,000 caret of raw diamonds every year. The complex will also have its own showrooms, where the polished diamonds will be displayed," Ravindra Pastore, the district collector of Panna, said.
The Panna diamond mines were taken over in 1966 by the National Mining Development Corporation, which discovered an 18.5 million tonne kimberlite pipe in the Majhgawan area of the district.
By March 1999, the corporation had excavated, explored and processed 5.9 million tonne of the kimberlite pipe.
According to S M Pandey, the diamond officer in Panna mines, "the kimberlite pipe could still produce up to 12.7 lakh caret of diamonds."
"Every year, around 4,000 caret of diamonds are pilferaged from shallow mines covering an area of 70 km in Panna district," he said.
Though diamonds attract a good price, heavy taxation reduces its worth to 15-30 per cent of the exact value. Besides, selling diamonds is not an easy task for the 80,000 labourers who work these shallow mines.
Under the state government's Diamond Operation Fund, labourers deposit the diamonds in government reserve and then wait for an auction. The diamond park could provide income to these labourers.
