Indian Gold Book:Indian Gold Book - Gold Bars Worldwide

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
GIR FIELDTRIPS
GIR visited New Delhi and 11 States: Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan (north), West Bengal
(east), Gujarat and Maharashtra (west) and Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala (south).
There was a focus on the south as it is the most important gold consuming region.
GIR conducted interviews in 38 cities, towns and villages. Apart from New Delhi, the cities were Ludhiana, Panipat, Agra,
Meerut, Mathura and Jaipur (north), Kolkata (east), Mumbai, Thane, Ahmedabad and Nagpur (west), and Hyderabad,
Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Cochin/Ernakulam and Trichur (south).
Meetings were held with representatives of 16 government-related departments and organisations, 14 banks and other
official gold importers, 31 bullion dealers, refiners and coin fabricators, 114 jewellery fabricators, wholesalers and retailers,
and 16 other gold-related entities.
In total, GIR interviewed more than 200 people at 191 gold-related businesses and institutions. Several were visited two
and more times to try to clarify the outcome of earlier discussions. GIR is indebted to everyone for their patience and
support, and especially to WGC India and Mr Daga.
INDUSTRY SUPPORT
The encouragement, advice and trade introductions of the dedicated WGC India team were greatly
appreciated: G.S. Pillai, Hiroo Mirchandani, Kumar Shivram, Madhumita Manna Kulkarni, Manos Mukherjee
and Sharmili Rajput.
Madhusudan Daga, India’s leading authority on the Indian gold market since the early 1950s (50 years), acted as a
consultant on many aspects of the market. His knowledge of the market and his views communicated over several days,
including a fieldtrip to the remarkable rural town of Jalgaon (Maharashtra), were invaluable and enormously stimulating.
GIR is particularly grateful to several leading jewellery retailers who continued to provide information after the meetings.
Notably, R.K. Nagarkar and P.C. Gupte (Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri, Zaveri Bazaar, Mumbai) who also kindly sent photographs
to illustrate regional gold jewellery styles, Rakesh Saraf (Girdhari Lal Saraf, New Delhi), Mukesh Kohli (Raj Jewellers, New
Delhi), Dr Nawal Agrawal (Birdichand Ghanshyamdas, Jaipur), Subir Kumar Sen (B.C. Sen, Kolkata) and Biplabankur
and Shibankur Roychowdhury (M.P. Jewellers, Kolkata), G.B. Umesh (Ganjam, Bangalore), and Ashwin Vummidi (Vummidi
Bangaru Chetty, Chennai).
D.C. Karel (D.C. Karel, Kolkata), Dinesh Zaveri (Harjivandas Juthabhai Zaveri, Ahmedabad), S. Santosh Kumar (National
Institute of Jewellery Design, Ahmedabad), Senthil Kota (Kota, Coimbatore), Vr. Gunashekar (Kirtilals, Hyderabad) and S.
Sanathana Pai (A. Geeri Pai, Cochin) also kindly assisted GIR to visit local towns and villages in their States. When visiting
rural areas in the Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, GIR was accompanied by an interpreter, Pawan Bhardwaj.
Many others also went out of their way to support the project. Professor T. Haque (Ministry of Agriculture, New Delhi)
contributed greatly to GIR’s basic understanding of the rural economy. S.P. Batra (National Council of Applied Economic
Research, New Delhi) and Mita Roychowdury and A. Basu (DGCIS) provided much written information on request. Jose
Alukka (Alukkas, Trichur) and Fahim Kahn (Hutti Gold Mines, Bangalore) provided supplementary photographs. V.S.A. Sury
and V. Sreedhar (GJEPC, Mumbai), Dr K.K. Chatterjee (Indian Bureau of Mines, Nagpur), Dr Sneh Bhatla (Bureau of Indian
Standards, New Delhi), Anand Trivedi (MMTC, New Delhi), Rajan Venkatesh (ScotiaMocatta, Mumbai) and Raghav Kamath
(Corporation Bank, Mumbai) kindly reviewed relevant draft texts.
The observations of Bhargava Vaidya (gold market consultant, Mumbai) were also much appreciated.
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE INDIAN GOLD MARKET 11