The Finance Minister in his budget speech for the Union Budget 2015-16 made the following announcement:

“India is one of the largest consumers of gold in the world and imports as much as 800-1000 tonnes of gold each year. Though stocks of gold in India are estimated to be over 20,000 tonnes, most of this gold is neither traded, nor monetized. I propose to… develop an alternate financial asset, a Sovereign Gold Bond, as an alternative to purchasing metal gold. The Bonds will carry a fixed rate of interest, and also be redeemable in cash in terms of the face value of the gold, at the time of redemption by the holder of the Bond.

Accordingly, a draft outline of the Scheme has been prepared. Comments and views are invited on the draft scheme by 2nd July, 2015.

(The outline of the Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme is only at the draft stage and is being placed here to obtain public opinion. The scheme as it stands at this stage, does not imply any commitment from the government)