In 2016 Narendra Garwa was facing a desperate financial situation. His small book store in the village of Renwal, Rajasthan, was running at a loss.
"Rajasthan is a dry area with water issues. It was a challenge to think of growing pearls with limited water but I decided to try," he says. In the wild, pearl formation is rare so most pearls sold these days are from farmed molluscs, usually oysters or freshwater mussels.To spur the mollusc to form a pearl, an irritant is artificially introduced into the creature. However, it is a delicate process and the mussels or oysters must be carefully handled, as Mr Garwa found.Mr Garwa had travelled to Kerala to buy the mussels - a journey of 1,700 miles involving a 36-hour train journey.
Under the scheme the government pays for half the cost of setting up a pond for pearl fishing, and so far the Department for Fisheries has given financial support to 232 pearl farming ponds.