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Savji Dhanji Dholakia (Gujarati: સવજી ધનજી ધોળકીયા), born 12 April 1962, is the founder and chairman of Hari Krishna Exports Pvt. Ltd., a Diamond manufacturing and exporting company with manufacturing units at Surat in Gujarat, India and its marketing and sales office in Mumbai, India. He is known as Mr. Savji Kaka in the diamond circles. His company currently exports finished diamonds to more than 50 countries directly from Mumbai. The company also has affiliates in the US, Belgium, UAE, Hong Kong and China.
Early life
Savji Dholakia was raised in a farming family in Dudhala, Amreli, Gujarat, India. Dholakia dropped out of school at 13 and started working at his uncle's diamond business in Surat.
Career
Savji Dholakia joined his paternal uncle who was already engaged in the diamond trade in Surat. His brothers, Himmat and Tulsi, joined him in Surat and they started their own diamond business in 1984. The youngest brother, Ghanshyam, joined 7 years later in 1992.
After 10 years of rigorous diamond polishing work Savji Dholakia formed Hari Krishna Exports in 1992. The sales then were meager. Years later, as of March 2014, the company witnessed a turnover of USD 650 million (4000 CRORE INR) with a 104% growth over the previous year. The total strength of the workers and employees is more than 6,000.
Dholakia is also involved in diamond jewellery manufacturing and exporting H.K. Designs and Unity Jewels. Through H.K. Jewels Pvt. Ltd. the domestic market is being catered to. Kisna Diamond Jewellery is a Pan India brand distributed through more than 480 distributors to more than 6500 retail outlets.
Achievements
Savji Dholakia's diamond company is among the top 5 in the industry. The company has achieved many prestigious awards over the years for their outstanding performance. For instance Hari Krishna Exports Pvt. Ltd. has been recipient of the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council awards for the past 12 consecutive years from 2003–2014. Organisations outside India have also taken a note of its achievements the most recent being the Jewellery News Asia Awards (Hong Kong) and the Stevie Awards (Paris) for the year 2014.
Employee relations
Dholakia is best known for giving his employees cars, jewellery and homes worth USD 8 million (50 crore INR) as a reward for meeting targets. He gave away 491 cars (Fiat Punto), 525 pieces of diamond jewellery and 200 apartments to mark the Hindu festival of Diwali in October 2014 as bonuses. He has been rewarding employees of his firm with diamond jewellery, new cars and flats for meeting their annual targets for the last three years. He did it again in October 2015, presenting valuable gifts to selected 1,268 employees. and again in 2016 he had gifted 400 flats and 1,260 cars to his employees.