Now, Delhi has its own world class diamond certification lab: IGI

Standardization of any kind is a good idea especially in the jewellery industry. It helps consumers to know what to expect. So be it hallmarking of gold or certification of precious/semi-precious stones, the move is welcome.

Since hallmarking is already gathering momentum across the country, Thursday came with the announcement that International Gemological Institute(IGI) is opening their office in Delhi, 3rd in India. The earlier ones being Bombay(Mumbai) and Calcutta(Kolkata). The office is located in the jewelry hub of Delhi , Karol Bagh and details can be found on their website.

"IGI provides various services like preparing diamond reports on the basis of Cut, Color, Clarity, and Carat( 4C's) and now it will provide the 5th C called confidence to the consumers" remarked their CEO Roland Lorie at the launch party. It also provides various other services like laserscribe, table branding etc. You can find at their website.

Talking to Ajay Shukla, the branch manager of IGI office Delhi, I asked what prompted them to open a office in Delhi: Ajay related the story of mobile labs which had to frequently visit Delhi to grade mounted jewellery for the Jewellers and some time back it became so frequent that it made sense for them to open a office in Delhi.

Mobile labs are self contained labs with equipments to help gemologists grade mounted jewellery on Jeweller premises and compact enough to be flown easily to places which dont have a regular setup.

What does all this mean?

That the consumers are increasingly demanding certification and that too not the local Deluxe/Super Deluxe diamonds kind but certifications based on technical merits like the 4Cs. That means the consumer is getting super smart as also noted by the CEO of IGI. The consumer is going to the internet and getting all the information before he even steps in the showroom of the jeweller.

This also means that now you as a consumer can get certified solitaires or even certified mounted jewellery. As mentioned earlier IGI does provide for a way to grade mounted jewellery( jewellery where the diamonds are already set in gold) . There is a detailed report in either case which clearly mentions what IGI thinks of the diamonds in terms of the 4Cs.

Anyways enough talk now time for some pics.


At the launch Party of IGI in Delhi.


At their office in Karol Bagh. Left to Right : IGI's CEO Roland Lorie, Yours Truly, Marketing Manager (IGI India) Nishit Rathee, IGI Delhi's Branch Manager Ajay Shukla.

(This is a guest post by Aditya who was present at the launch of IGI's office in Delhi.)