The Cabinet on Wednesday approved Gold Bond and Gold Monetisation schemes to reduce its demand in physical form, and fish out idle gold lying with households and other entities.
“It is safer and economically more stable to go under both these schemes,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said after the Cabinet meeting.
The Gold Bond scheme will have an annual cap of 500 grams per person and such bonds would be issued for a period of 5-7 years.
The Budget 2015-16 had proposed to launch a Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) scheme to develop a financial asset as an alternative to gold.
By taking advantage of gold monetisation scheme, people can deposit idle gold with authorised agencies and take advantage of the price escalation of gold as well as earn interest on the deposit, he said.
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