Budget 2023: Govt to review custom duty rate on lab-grown diamond seeds: Finance Minister

New Delhi [India], February 1 : The government on Wednesday said a research and development grant will be provided to one of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) for five years to encourage indigenous production of Lab Grown Diamonds (LGD) seeds and machines and to reduce import dependency.
During her Budget speech, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said there's a proposal to review the custom duty rate on LGD seeds to reduce the cost of production.
Lab Grown Diamonds (LGD) is a technology-and innovation-driven emerging sector with high employment potential. These environment-friendly diamonds have optically and chemically the same properties as natural diamonds.
There are many ways in which LGDs are produced. The most common and the cheapest is the "High pressure, high temperature" (HPHT) method. As the name suggests, this method requires extremely heavy presses that can produce up to 730,000 psi of pressure under extremely high temperatures (at least 1500 Celsius).
Usually graphite is used as the "diamond seed" and when subjected to these extreme conditions, the relatively inexpensive form of carbon turns into one of the most expensive carbon forms.