Silica Bead Industry in Cambay, Gujarat State, India

Silica bead manufacturing industry in Cambay has a tradition of more than two thousand years. Even today it forms an important cottage industry in Gujarat. With the indigenously developed age-old methods of bead making, this industry here is successfully competing with other bead industry centres in the world. Only recently mechanised grinding and tumbling processes have been adopted. However, the concept of tumbling is not entirely alien to this cottage industry, because some forms of manunl tumbling were in practice in earlier years.