Joy Alukkas is an Indian businessman from

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

. He is the chairman and managing director of Joyalukkas Group. According to a 2023 Forbes report, he has a net worth of $4.4 billion.

Early life

His father, Varghese Alukkas "A. J. Varghese" of the Alukkas family started the jewellery business by setting a store in

Thrissur Thrissur (, ), Renaming of cities in India, formerly Trichur, also known by its historical name Thrissivaperur, is a city and the headquarters of the Thrissur district in Kerala, India. It is the List of most populous urban agglomerations in Ke ...

, India. Later Varghese shared his business among his sons - Jos, Francis, Joy Alukkas and Anto Alukkas. Joy Alukkas is concentrated in overseas business and started trading in gulf countries. Joy Alukkas' original name according to

Malayali The Malayali people (; also spelt Malayalee and sometimes known by the demonym Keralite) are a Dravidian ethnolinguistic group originating from the present-day state of Kerala and Union Territory of Lakshadweep in India, occupying its south ...

naming conventions was A. V. Joy.

Career

In 2001, Alukkas founded Joy Alukkas Jewellery. The group is based in

and

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

. In 2007, he opened a Gold & Diamond jewellery showroom, and a "Diamond Cave" in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

, India. In 2012, Joyalukkas was authorized to sell

Forevermark Forevermark is a diamond company and subsidiary of De Beers Group. Forevermark currently operates in China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, and the United States. Forevermark is present in 32 markets in total across Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Un ...

branded diamonds from

De Beers The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...

. Other businesses headed by Joy Alukkas include Mall of Joy, a shopping retail destination, Jolly Silks, a silk fashion label, Joyalukkas Exchange, a money exchange platform, and Joyalukkas Lifestyle Developers, a real estate company. Jolly Silks was named after his wife, Jolly Joy.

Philanthropy

In May 2018, Joy Alukkas contributed to relief fund for victims of the

Cyclone Ockhi Very Severe Cyclonic Storm Ockhi () was a strong tropical cyclone that devastated parts of Sri Lanka and India in 2017, and was the most intense tropical cyclone in the Arabian Sea since Cyclone Megh in 2015. The ninth depression, and the third ...

. After the Kerala Floods in September 2018, the Joyalukkas Foundation announced that it would build 250 houses for those who have lost their homes. 350 orphaned students were awarded the 'Joy of Hope' scholarship by Joyalukkas Foundation securing educational support for five years. Supported by a contribution from Alukkas. Plans for a Thrissur based old age home and palliative care center were also announced.

Controversy

In 2018,

Income Tax Department The Income Tax Department (also referred to as IT Department; abbreviated as ITD) is a government agency undertaking direct tax collection of the government of the Republic of India. It functions under the Department of Revenue of the Mini ...

Kochi Kochi ( , ), List of renamed Indian cities and states#Kerala, formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the Ernakulam district, district of Ernakulam in the ...

carried out an IT raid on over 130 showrooms and premises related to the group, and found tax evasion and unaccounted sales of

gold jewellery Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal, a group 1 ...

to the tune of ₹500 crore. In February 2023, the

confiscated assets worth

₹ The Indian rupee sign ⟨₹⟩ is the currency symbol for the Indian rupee (ISO 4217: INR), the official currency of India. Designed by D. Udaya Kumar, it was presented to the public by the Government of India on 15 July 2010, following its ...

305

crore Crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes the quantity ten million (107) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. In many international contexts, the decimal quantity is formatted as 10,000,000, but when used in the context of the India ...

of Joy Alukkas group as part of the raid on alleged black money transfers. ED has successfully resolved the case of financial transfer via

Hawala Hawala or hewala ( , meaning ''transfer'' or sometimes ''trust''), originating in India as havala (), also known as in Persian, and or in Somali, is a popular and informal value transfer system based on the performance and honour of a hug ...

Channels from India to Dubai, Joy Alukkas, the Chairman of Joy Alukkas India Pvt Ltd, had assets valued at ₹305.84 crore attached by the Directorate of Enforcement in February 2023.

Bibliography

*Joy Alukkas. ''Spreading Joy: How Joyalukkas Became the World's Favourite Jeweller''.

HarperCollins India HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the " Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. HarperCollins is h ...

(29 October 2023)

Awards and accolades

* Alukkas received ‘The Business Excellence Award 2016’ from Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Culture, Youth and Social Development, organized by Indian Business Professionals Council (IBPC). (2016) * Listed in Forbes Magazine in both their

World's Billionaires ''The World's Billionaires'' is an annual ranking of people who are billionaires, i.e., they are considered to have a net worth of US$1 billion or more, by the American business magazine ''Forbes''. The list was first published in March 1987. T ...

list as well as their India's Rich list. (2018) *Best Indian Diamond Jewellery of the Year by Retail Jeweller Middle East innovation Awards (2019) *Listed as the 69th richest Indian in Forbes India’s Richest List (2022) *Joy Alukkas climbed to the position of richest jeweller in India with a rank of 50, his estimated net worth is $4.4 billion.

External link

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alukkas, Joy Businesspeople from Thrissur 1956 births Businesspeople from Kerala Living people