Not using cheap chemicals and plastics does make his products ‘a bit more expensive than competition,’ he admits; but he takes “pride in doing the right things for the customers and the planet.”

Mittal Craftworks has a niche manufacturing set-up for high-quality home-decor items like engraved candle-stands, photo-frames, lanterns, statuettes and other ornamental items. These are made in silver, copper, brass, aluminium, steel, iron and various alloys, and are also accessorised with substances including glass, naturally-occurring stones, wood and leather, which enable a wide variety of surface finishes.

“In the past one year, we have supplied our copperware and handicraft including tumblers, bottles, jugs and lanterns to leading companies like Larsen & Toubro, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Round Table of India and various colleges,” Mittal says. While many of these items are used as festival give-aways, especially during Diwali, many are for the client institution’s awards or mementos to important customers and others. A silver-plated resin Ganesh statue, with Italian marble and silver-plated base, for instance is a popular present for the 10-day Ganapati festival.

The parent company, headed by Ankit’s father Dinesh Chand Mittal and elder brother Anshul, traces its beginning back to 1907 – when his grandfather started business as a trader and later began manufacturing brass, copper and then aluminium cooking utensils, has developed its product portfolio since 1987 into currency coins, coin-blanks, medals, tokens and copper strips and coils. Mittal Craftworks is an offshoot of this copper manufacturer. Its clients include India’s government mints, the Royal Canadian Mint, the Thai Treasury, Bank Negara Malaysia, Banco Central de Reserva del Peru and Indian Ordnance Factories.

It sells its pure silver coins and tokens under the brand Serranto and the hand-crafted pure copperware as Copperkraft in a few overseas markets besides in India. Now restricted to only some states because it has a limited network of distributors, but has also gone online with its own e-commerce website as well as other marketplaces, and plans to expand its wings throughout the country, Mittal adds. All that glistens is definitely not gold.