Cine Director Priyadharshan inaugurates the 89th world class showroom of Malabar Gold and Diamonds at Vijaya Forum Mall, Vadapazhani in Chennai as Malabar Group chairman, executive directors, regional director and others look on. — Courtesy photo Malabar Gold & Diamonds, one of the world's top jewelry retailers, strengthened its presence in Tamil Nadu by inaugurating its most-awaited showroom at The Forum Vijaya Mall-Vadapalani. Film Director Priyadarshan inaugurated the showroom in the presence of Kalairajan VP – MLA, MK Ashok – MLA, S. Murugan, Chairman of Zone 13, Malabar Group Chairman M.P Ahammed and other dignitaries. The event was also attended by well-known film director Sri. I.V.Sasi, his wife and actress Smt. Seema and famous playback singer Smt Chitra. This is the group's tenth outlet in Tamil Nadu and 89th worldwide. “The launch of our showroom in the The Forum Vijaya Mall, Vadapalani, is part of our 2013 plan to strengthen our retail presence across various parts of the country. The company plans to increase its worldwide retail network and is targeting to have 220 stores by the year 2015.” said MP Ahammed, Chairman, Malabar Group. The new showroom showcases the exclusive brands of Malabar Gold & Diamonds such as Divine-Indian Heritage Jewelry, Era-Uncut Diamond Jewelry, Mine-Diamonds unlimited, Ethnix-Handcrafted designer Jewelry, Starlet-Kid's Jewelry and Precia-Precious Gem Jewelry The jeweler sells only BIS Hallmarked 916 Gold, IGI Certified E F Color V V S clarity diamond jewelry, and PGI certified platinum jewelry . Surya, the popular film hero in South Indian film industry, is the company's brand ambassador in Tamil Nadu. Apart from its existing showrooms at North Usman Road,Chennai, Phoenix Market City,Velacherry (Chennai), The Forum Vijaya Mall, Vadapalani (Chennai), Coimbatore, Erode, Salem, Madurai, Thanjavur, Dharmapuri and Hosur, the Group plans to open other showrooms shortly at Ramanathapuram, Vellore, Kumbakonam, Tirunelveli, Nagercoil, Trichy, Tuticorin, Tiruvannamalai and Pondicherry in 2013. “Tamil Nadu has been a key market for us in our growth plans and we intend to increase the number of showrooms to 35 in the state by the end of 2015” VS Shafeek, Regional Director, Tamil Nadu said. All products sold by Malabar Gold & Diamonds come with an elaborate and transparent price tag with details like gross weight, stone weight, making charge, stone charge and net weight, thus enabling the customers to understand the product pricing by themselves. Malabar Gold & Diamonds' value-added services include lifelong free maintenance, one-year free insurance coverage and buyback guarantee for all its ornaments. The jeweler's “gold purchase scheme” enables its customer to book gold on a monthly basis and to hedge against fluctuating gold prices. The booking will carry an additional bonus benefit when the customers buy the ornaments. As a part of the corporate social responsibility initiatives, Malabar Gold & Diamonds has earmarked 10 percent of its profits for CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities . Medical charity, which was started during 1999, is providing lifesaving drugs to the poor and, to date, more than 2,098, 000 patients have been benefited. Malabar Housing Charity, which was started during 2004 with the objective of building homes for the poor and underprivileged, has so far built more than 5,770 houses. The Group chairman along with the company's brand ambassador had announced the Group's latest CSR initiative, a commitment of educational scholarship under its “Empowering Education, Empowering Womanhood” initiative which provides educational scholarship for girl students across India. This activity provides Rs. 2 cr as educational scholarship for 10,000 higher secondary girl students in government schools across Tamil Nadu for a year. This scheme is being extended to girl students in Andhra Pradesh. Also for molding quality citizens for the country through education, they have teamed up with the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode. As part of this they sponsored scholarships and gold medals for school teachers and institutional leaders for the promotion of excellence in school education in India, joining hands with “leading schools” project of IIM Kozhikode. The “Zero waste=100 marks” campaign, the latest initiative of the group aims to popularize the concept of waste management. It has also conducted many litter-free awareness campaigns and projects for social wellbeing as a part of the Green India initiative. The group is expanding across other Indian states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi and NCR Region, UP and Punjab among others. Apart from Gulf countries, it has decided to expand their presence to South Asia, other parts of Middle East, Far East, Europe and America. — SG
