Journalism of Courage
With gold imports on a steady rise, the finance ministry is putting finishing touches to the gold monetisation scheme and is also working on plans for launching a sovereign gold bond.
“Public comments on the proposed gold monetisation scheme are under consideration and the scheme is likely to be announced by next month or so,” said an official close to the development. The ministry had last month floated details of the draft gold monetisation scheme that would allow individuals and institutions holding surplus gold to open a Gold Savings Account in banks for a minimum period of one year and earn interest in either cash or gold units as well as avail tax exemptions. Depositors will however, be expected to follow KYC norms while opening accounts under the scheme.
Sources said the finance ministry is in talks with the RBI to finalise the modalities of the scheme under which banks would also be permitted to deposit the gold as part of their CRR and SLR requirements, sell it to buy foreign currency, convert it into gold coins, trade it on domestic commodity exchanges or even lend it to jewellers. At the onset, the scheme is likely to be launched only in a few larger cities, where facilities of BIS approved hallmarking centres would be easily available that would value the gold.
