Press Trust Of India / Ahmedabad May 24, 2009, 00:07 IST
The country’s largest bank SBI, under its Gold Deposit Scheme, has collected 548 kilograms of the precious metal in two months. The scheme which started on March 16 aims at bringing the gold into mainstream from the houses of people of the country.
“Our branches in four centres of Gujarat — Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot and Vadodara, have attracted 548 kgs of gold in the last two months,” a senior SBI official said.
“The gold deposit scheme has done exceptionally well especially in Ahmedabad with 80 per cent of deposits coming to bank vaults are from the city out of the total gold deposits of 548 kilograms received so far from across the state,” he added. “Largely it is the individuals who are depositing gold in the bank vaults, and just two religious trusts have come forward so far to deposit their idle lying gold reserves with us.”
SBI has not fundamentally changed anything from the failed scheme launched in 1999. SBI collected about 6.7 tonnes in the previous scheme. With the religious intsitutional investors not showing much interest this time, it is doubtful if they will even reach this mark this time. The last time the scheme was deemed a failure and withdrawn in two years. Moreover, they were not able to successfully transfer the deposits into loans to jewellers for higher interest rate. It is best for SBI to stick with their regular business and not venture into unfamiliar territories.
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