On World Water Day 2026, Savji Dholakia inaugurated the CIBJO Lake in Gujarat’s Luvariya village, turning a global jewellery milestone into a lifeline for 12,000 farmers.
There’s a certain kind of person who announces an initiative and another kind who shows up with an excavator. Savji Dholakia, the Padma Shri-winning founder of Hari Krishna Exports and Gujarat’s most celebrated diamond merchant, has always been the second kind.
On World Water Day, March 22, 2026, Savji Dholakia inaugurated the CIBJO Lake at Luvariya village in Gujarat – a 15-acre water body holding 15.6 crore litres of water, built to honour the 100-year milestone of the World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO). The event was inaugurated by CIBJO President Dr. Gaetano Cavalieri and witnessed by senior Gujarat government officials, Members of Parliament, and a remarkable assembly of over a dozen ambassadors and high commissioners from nations across Africa, Asia, and Europe.
The lake is not a symbol. It is infrastructure. Serving five villages and nearly 12,000 farmers in a region that has grappled with drought and water scarcity for generations, the CIBJO Lake promises to change how often and how much local farmers can grow. “People who now have the water security to move from one harvest a year to many,” Dholakia wrote on LinkedIn, in a post that has resonated widely across India’s business and sustainability communities.
The inauguration brought together an unusually prominent international gathering — including high commissioners of the Seychelles, Botswana, and the Maldives, and ambassadors from Mongolia, Romania, Thailand, Mali, Cambodia, Chad, Benin, Niger, Togo, and Cameroon. The presence of Francesca Manfredi, Head of Sustainable Innovation for Watches & Jewellery at Kering Group, underscored how seriously the global jewellery industry is watching Dholakia’s work on the ground.
Savji Dholakia shared this inaugration details on his official linkedin account, check it out:
This is not an isolated act of generosity. It is the latest chapter of a mission that has been quietly transforming rural Gujarat for years. The Dholakia Foundation, Hari Krishna Exports’ philanthropic arm, has now rejuvenated over 170 water bodies across the state. Through its flagship Mission River initiative, the Foundation has built over 155 lakes, storing more than 22 billion litres of water and supporting over 250,000 farmers. The water table in project areas has reportedly risen from 500 feet deep to just 20–30 feet during monsoon season — a transformation that has also tripled cotton crop output in some regions.
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Rise of Savji Dholakia as Diamond King of India
The man behind all this started with nothing close to these numbers. Born in 1962 in the small village of Dudhala in Amreli district, Savji Dholakia left home at 13 with just ₹12.50 in his pocket barely enough for a bus ticket to Surat. He started as a diamond polishing worker, earned ₹179 a month, and saved every rupee he could. By 1984, alongside his brothers, he had founded what would eventually become Hari Krishna Exports — today a ₹15,000 crore diamond empire exporting to over 80 countries and employing upwards of 10,000 people.
His approach to business has always defied convention. Every Diwali, rather than celebrating quietly, Dholakia gifts cars, homes, jewellery, and fixed deposits to loyal employees. In one year alone, he reportedly gave away 1,260 cars and 400 flats. His son Dravya famously worked at a bakery for ₹200 a day at his father’s insistence before joining the family business.
In 2022, the Government of India recognised Savji Dholakia with the Padma Shri for his social work, and the Responsible Jewellery Council featured him in its “20 Stories of Impact” series. More recently, the Foundation’s work has received recognition from the United Nations for its alignment with Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 6 on clean water and sanitation.
The CIBJO Lake is just the latest milestone, but Dholakia has made it clear there is no finish line. “We will not stop,” he wrote simply, “because water is not just the foundation of agriculture. Water is the foundation of everything.”
In a world where corporate responsibility often stops at a glossy report, India’s Diamond King keeps digging.
