Today, as India Post unveiled a customised stamp for the Bharat Diamond Bourse, the small square of paper carried a dense freight of memory. It marked forty-one years since an idea was incorporated and fifteen years since the doors of a functioning bourse first opened. The ceremony was brief; the work it honours is generational. The stamp acknowledges what the traders from the Opera House and other cramped Mumbai lanes already knew by habit: that institutions are not found, they are made.
The narrative is geographical and deeply human. The land where BDB stands was once river-marsh and tidal flat; today it is a pulsing hub of vaults and customs counters, of couriers and bankers, and of artisans. That transformation, from wetland to one of the globe’s most consequential trading floors, was not accidental. It was the consequence of an insistence from a particular set of traders: the Opera House men who moved from humble, rented rooms to imagine a single, secure place that could hold their trade with dignity.
Where the Name “Bharat” Met the Diamond Business
At the stamp unveiling, Poonam Mahajan's (Former Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Mumbai, North Central) opening cadence placed the institution in cultural terms: “Forty-one years is quite a journey. I was thinking about the origin of the name Bharat. We know that India’s culture is thousands of years old.” Her voice threaded history with business, reminding the room that diamonds were not merely ornaments in modern times but, in ancient eras, treasures of kings and princes, kept far from common hands. “When we talk about diamonds, we often associate them today with glamour and women. But in ancient times, they were treasures of kings and princes. The common people didn’t have access to them back then.”
She mapped India’s deep connection to the stone: “Throughout history, India has always had a deep relationship with diamonds. In fact, India gave the world its first knowledge and testing of diamonds. When I thought about the name Bharat, I realised how our respected Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has revived it with great pride. Today, we do not just say ‘India’ to the world, we say Bharat.” Her remarks grounded the Bourse’s achievement in both cultural lineage and civic renewal.
The Opera House People and an Unthinkable Idea
The human actors of this story are not incidental. They began around the Opera House and in buildings like Panchratna and Prasad Chambers — small, congested nodes of skill and trust. From there, a handful of voices wanted to move away from the cramped geography. One of the earliest and most consequential of those was S. G. Jhaveri. As Mehul Shah (Vice President, Bharat Diamond Bourse) reminded everyone at the event: “In 1984, this was an unthinkable idea. No one could have imagined that a private custodian system or a private customs facility could even exist. But it was S. G. Jhaveri who came up with this vision. He collaborated with the Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation of India (MMTC) and laid the foundation for the Bharat Diamond Bourse.”
Shah traced the institutional beginnings with gratitude for those alliances: “Mr. Raghavan, who was the then chairman of MMTC alongside Mr. Amarnath, the Chief General Manager of the local Bombay office, played key roles in the early operations of the Bourse, helping establish a system that was groundbreaking for its time.” The story here is not merely of private capital but of an uncommon public–private handshake: traders, a government trading corporation, and municipal authorities finding a way to host customs, vaults, and trade under a single roof.
Building Through Failure and Return
No great civic project moves only forward. The Bourse’s first decades were laced with delays, design disputes, and market downturns that tested the will of its members. As some investments faltered in the 1990s and projects stalled, a renewed push in the early 2000s became decisive. Ashish Shelar (Cabinet Minister for Information Technology and Cultural Affairs, Maharashtra) described his own journey into that civic theatre: “I have been associated with the work of the BDB since around 2002–2003. In the 1990s, many of you invested efforts and resources, but not everything worked out as expected. Some progress was made, but the results we hoped for did not fully materialize. In 2002, I became a corporator, and in 2003, I became a member of the MMRDA Affirmative Action Committee. It was around that time that our campaign began — to ensure that in front of MMRDA, our concerns and proposals would be heard, approved, and represented through a proper committee.”
Shelar's speech about representation, that someone inside the MMRDA could speak the industry’s language, explains why the project changed from a wish into a municipal reality. “I was always an advocate for the Bharat Diamond Bourse within MMRDA, working for the growth of our business, and I truly feel it has been both my privilege and my pleasure to represent the BDB there,” he said at the ceremony, and the room heard, in a single sentence, how civic access can alter an industry’s fate.
A Trade That Reinvented Space
When the Bourse finally opened its doors in October 2010, it did so as a careful, practical answer to the problem that had spurred its creation: insecure transit, scattered dealers, customs delay, and the constant peril of moving high-value consignments on public streets. The new complex includes unified customs clearance, bonded vaults, banking, and insurance. As Shah and others recalled, what had once been unimaginable, a private customs facility inside a trader-run complex, became the central advantage of the enterprise. That practical ease lowered costs, accelerated transactions, and allowed India’s polishing and finishing strengths to be expressed on a very large scale.
The social returns were immediate and visible. Speakers at the event emphasised that the industry never chased recognition alone. “We have never done this for recognition; we have always done it out of a sense of responsibility,” Kirit Bhansali (Chairman, GJEPC) observed. The responsibility has been both local and far-flung: hospitals, schools, scholarships, and clinics have been funded by industry figures. “Some have built hospitals with their own money, while others have established schools. When it comes to CSR, our community has always led by example. Let me tell you, there are at least fifteen hospitals that have been built through individual effort and generosity,” Bhansali said, defining the ethos of an industry that turns private profit into public good.
Logistics, Post, and the Labour of Trust
Industry and logistics are intertwined. Amitabh Singh (Chief Postmaster General of Maharashtra Circle), speaking for the postal side of the ceremony, imagined the BDB not only as a trading floor but as a node in a modern postal and logistics network: “We at the BDB Post Office also hope to promote the gems and jewellery industry through our logistics services. The ministry is currently considering this proposal so that a dedicated base can soon be established here for national, domestic, and international Speed Post services to operate directly from this location. In fact, I would like to mention to Poonam Mahajan ji, who is present among us today, that the modernisation of Speed Post began under the guidance of her late father, Pramod Mahajan ji, who served as the Minister of Communications and Information Technology in 2002. One of his most significant contributions during his tenure was his belief that Speed Post should not be inferior to private courier services. It was under his leadership that the Global Track Entry System was inaugurated, which revolutionised postal logistics in India.”
Eyes on Connectivity — The Next Arc
Anoop Mehta (President, Bharat Diamond Bourse) spoke with the authority of someone who has watched the bourse’s needs meet metropolitan strategy: “MMRDA today, along with the present government, is working with a clear direction and vision to make the Bandra–Kurla Complex one of the finest business centers in India, both in terms of connectivity and workplace infrastructure. I hope that within the next year, the overhead metro, which will connect both corridors, will help ease much of the traffic we see today. Of course, the biggest project for our industry will be the inauguration of the bullet train because, as we know, we are closely linked to the city of Surat, where most of our goods are cut and polished, and we travel frequently between the two. In the next three to four years, the Bharat Diamond Bourse will be exceptionally well-connected and strategically positioned.
MMRDA has already introduced a scheme that allows for additional FSI, which should accommodate the growth that lies ahead. Yes, times are challenging now, but as the global economy stabilises and growth returns, we will have no difficulty expanding. The present state government has recognised the potential of this area, not only for the diamond industry but also for finance, and has taken new steps to strengthen infrastructure and allot additional FSI at reasonable rates to those already established here.”
BDB and the Economic Arc of a State and a Nation
The Bharat Diamond Bourse is not merely an address in BKC; it is the nerve centre of an industry that helps power both Maharashtra’s and India’s economies. The gems and jewellery sector contributes roughly 7% to India’s GDP and about 10–12% of its total merchandise exports, according to official trade data from India’s Ministry of Commerce and the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC). Within this, cut and polished diamonds account for nearly half of India’s gems and jewellery exports — a figure that reached approximately ₹2.43 lakh crore (USD 28.5 billion) in FY 2024–25, as per IBEF and GJEPC reports.
A vast proportion of that trade, by industry estimates, more than 90% of the world’s polished diamonds pass through India, and the majority of India’s exports are routed via the Bharat Diamond Bourse. The daily activity within BDB, the exchange of parcels, customs clearance, logistics, banking, and insurance, sustains livelihoods for over five million people across India’s diamond and jewellery value chain, from cutting units in Surat and Navsari to design studios in Mumbai and export offices within these towers.
For Maharashtra, BDB has become both symbol and stimulus. It anchors a dense cluster of allied services: finance, logistics, vaulting, valuation, and design, which have elevated Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex into one of India’s most dynamic business districts. It has attracted global attention to the state’s role not just as a financial capital but as a gateway for high-value exports, drawing investment, skill, and ancillary employment. The state exchequer, too, benefits indirectly through real estate appreciation, service taxation, and the multiplier effects of trade spending concentrated in this geography.
Even during downturns, from the 1990s credit crunch to the pandemic’s trade paralysis, the diamond fraternity’s response has been characteristically resilient. Traders restructured credit lines, adopted digital tendering, and built traceability systems to align with global ethical norms. They did not wait for the world to change; they adapted in real time.
That is the enduring spirit behind the Bharat Diamond Bourse; a belief that precision, patience, and persistence are not just virtues of diamond cutting but also of nation-building. The story that began in the crowded galleries of the Opera House now glitters in the corridors of BKC. It is a story of marshland made market, of commerce made community, of light coaxed from stone, and of a country that continues to shine because its traders, quite simply, never stopped working the facets.