Breaking the monopoly of Japan in the production of big pearls, an Indian scientist claims to have achieved a rare feat by developing a technology to produce even bigger-sized black pearl through an oyster species.
Seven months after he was permitted to perform research activities in Andaman and Nicobar islands Dr Ajay K Sonkar says he has produced a rare black pearl of 8 mm nucleus from black lip oyster 'Pincdata margaritifera'.
"The technology is capable of producing even bigger size pearls but would require more time. Just because I wanted to display the efficacy of the technology I took this much time," he told PTI.
Letters of appreciation from the government and other countries have been flooding in after the scientist displayed the 8 mm nucleus black pearl on July 9 before the Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar.
The unique quality of the technology developed by the scientist, who hails from Allahabad, is that there is no need to kill the oyster to produce the pearl. The oyster could again be used for the purpose, he said.
Pinctada margaritifera, found in the islands, is one of the most prominent species which has the potential to produce the most expensive and rare black pearls, he said.
During his research Sonkar found that the population of the species was very low due to over exploitation by the local people. He then established the most advanced hatchery which has successfully produced a stock of millions of juvenile oysters in the region.
In the first phase of his experiments Sonkar operated on 1000 oysters and subsequently 905 oysters produced the pearls, and the success-rate has stunned the scientists across the world as no one had earlier achieved more than 60 per cent success, the scientist claimed.
The development assumes significance as not even a single pearl was produced in a period of 30 years in the governmental research institutes with several research missions going on in the region.
"Despite continuous attempts by the scientists in various government and non-governmental research organisations, they
were not able to produce a single pearl," he said.
The 22 mm nucleus-sized pearl, which the scientist had developed in 1996 in his home town Allahabad, is still the world's largest and superior quality pearl.
Cost of a single pearl made on Sonkar's nucleus stands at $30,000, according to some specialists from the United States.
