Ahmedabad: On one of the biggest bullion markets, deceived, and the oldest in Ahmedabad, some women erode life from road dust – what they collect may not sparkle, but can still be gold.
The streets of Ratan Pol and Chowk Manek in the walled city are covered by 5,000 jewelry units that design, trade, and sell gold ornaments.
In break dawn, a lot before AMC’s sanitation workers arrived at the scene, a group of around 200 women – each of them was armed with a brush and a rider – swept this narrow lane and threw away dust into a sack.
Their mission is to hoard gold dust spots so that the shops can accidentally discarded.
As a matter of principle, these women do not receive money from the shop owner.
The dust collected by this woman is sold to ‘Dhuldhoyas’ or a dust washing machine.
Women get a monthly salary of Rs 15,000.
Dhul-Dhoyas treats dust with chemicals to extract gold.
“Jewelry with a manufacturing unit does not allow anyone to sweep their place.
They collect garbage in buckets every day, which are stored in sacks,” said Chinubhai Choksi, President Shree Choksi Mahajan, Manek Chowk, an association of around 220 traders and jewelry.
Choksi added: “Jewelry sells this garbage to Dhul-Dhoyas.
Trash takes jewelry between Rs 10,000 and Lakh Rupee depends on the weight.” Sanket Shukla, the owner of the gold cutting unit in Manek Chowk, said: “When we cut gold into a strip, part of Mulia metals are lost when turning into microscopic dust, flying into the air, or trapped in workers’ clothes.
” He added: “Some of these valuable dust slides out of the shops and hanging out with dust on the road.” He said that this dust was sold to Dhul-Dhoyas by women.
“Some jewelry collected dust from their shops for years and then sold it directly to wholesale buyers,” said Ashish Zaveri, Secretary with the Jewelers Gujarat Association.
He said that this was an ancient tradition in a walled city.
Wholesale dust buyers also buy old pillows, doormats, and carpets from jewelry and pay them lump sum, which stretches into thousands of rupees.
However, this tradition fades gradually with the advancement of jewelry making technology.
“Only 20% of jewelry manufacturing units make handmade goods today.
The rest has turned to the printing machine,” Choksi said.
“Molding machines minimize metal losses during the manufacturing process.”