PETALING JAYA: A labourer in India had lady luck by his side when he unearthed a 19.22-carat diamond worth almost US$100,000 (RM463,000).
According to CNN, the 40-year-old makes a US$4 (RM18) a day, working in fields or diamond mines in his home state of Madhya Pradesh. He sometimes also works as a tractor driver for a wealthy farmer.
However occasionally, he and his younger brother would pay US$4 (RM44) to dig for gold in a 64-square-meter plot of government land.
And during his dig, he unearthed a stone which shone spectacularly. The 40-year-old knew there and then it was a diamond.
He hugged his brother and got on their bikes and raced back home to show their family the amazing find.
Wasting no time, they got the diamond evaluated with Anupam Singh, official diamond examiner,
“This is a white diamond of 19.22 carat,” he was quoted as saying. It was valued at about $95,500 (RM442,876).
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Singh added that the government takes an 11.5 percent royalty for any find, plus a small tax, and gives the remaining amount to the person who found it.
The diamond office will wait for the value of its inventory to exceed $360,000 (RM1,669,605) before holding an auction, Singh said, after which Gond will receive his payout.
The delighted labourer has since opened a bank account and is eagerly waiting for his sum of the money to be credited.
“The first thing I’ll do is pay back debt of $6,000 (RM27,823). Then we will invest in all children getting educated, building homes, buy some land and maybe a tractor too,” he was quoted as saying.
His family includes his parents, wife, seven children, and the families of his younger brother and sister.
One would think he would be done with the mines now, but no! On Friday, the brothers woke up early and were back at the mines.
“We are already in the shallow mine. We will find more diamonds!”
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