new Delhi. Two weeks ago, a tweet by former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan made a lot of headlines. In the tweet, Chavan wrote, "According to the World Gold Council India's religious trusts have gold worth $ 1 trillion (76 lakh crore), the Indian government should immediately use the gold held by all religious trusts in the country. In this situation like emergency, the government can borrow this gold through gold bonds at low interest rates. ”
BJP leaders lashed out at Chavan after this tweet. Rakesh Sinha, a Rajya Sabha MP from BJP, was also one of them. He wrote in response to this tweet, "Does the Congress agree with the opinion of its leader Prithviraj Chavan that the gold of the temples should be taken? Will Prithviraj Chavan ji also talk about using the land of the Cathedral Church alone which is estimated to cost Rs 7000 crore, the Waqf which has an estimated wealth of 60 lakh crore? ”
This was two weeks ago but this debate is still going on on social media. Should the gold of the country's temples be used in this emergency? Does the Waqf Board also have gold? Can his wealth also be used to irrigate the corona-damaged economy? People are answering these questions on social media in their own style.
We also did some research on this and found that according to an estimate by the World Gold Council, there are 2 thousand tons of gold in the temples of India. It has also been told in different estimates between 3 thousand and 4 thousand tons. According to the World Gold Council, the gold held by the temples of India is three times that of the gold held by the Reserve Bank of India. According to the World Gold Council report of June 2019, the Reserve Bank of India had 618 tonnes of gold.
The central government does not know how much gold the trustees of the temples have.
On December 22, 2015, when Rajya Sabha MP Ranjib Biswal asked for the details of the estimated amount of gold in India's temples, the Finance Ministry said that he had no data on the gold reserves in the country's temples. Along with this, Ranjib Biswal had also asked whether the government has started talks with their trusts to include the gold reserves of temples in the financial system through the Gold Monetization Scheme? On this too, the reply of the Finance Ministry was received only.
Gold monetization scheme was expected to bring gold to temples in the market, but this happened very little
In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Gold Monetization Scheme, an attempt to get out this gold lying in homes and temples. In the 'Mann Ki Baat' program aired on AIR this year, the Prime Minister had said, "Keeping gold as 'Dead Money' does not suit today's era. Gold can turn into a living force from dead money, do not keep gold at home anymore. Give it to the bank, take interest and strengthen yourself and the country financially. "
Many temples also came forward on this initiative of Modi. He made a gold deposit in banks. But most temple trusts did not take interest in this. But from this scheme of the government, it can be said that Prime Minister Modi, like Prithviraj Chavan, wanted to accelerate it by bringing waste gold into the economy.
In the last year of the UPA government, the Reserve Bank had sought the details of gold stock from temples.
In September 2013, the Reserve Bank of India sought details of gold deposited with temple trusts across the country. Even at that time Hindu organizations and temple trusts objected to this. This time too, when Prithviraj Chavan's tweet was controverted, many priests were heard saying that devotees offer gold to God, it is not because the trusts donate or lend it to the government. People's feelings are attached to it, trusts cannot break the faith of devotees.
Commodity Expert Opinion - By taking gold from temples, the government can reduce gold imports only for the next few years.
Commodity expert Ajay Kedia says that at the moment there is no such situation that the government needs to take the gold of the temples. The government can increase its gold reserve for this gold, but at present the central bank has enough gold reserves, so it is not needed. In 1990, the government needed to pledge its gold, the situation is not yet at all.
"The government can simply use this gold under the Gold Monetization Scheme. Under this, if temples deposit gold in banks, it is melted and given to the jewelers on loan so that the demand of the people can be met only with the gold available in the country. To reduce the financial loss due to gold imports. India has been importing 750 tonnes of gold on average for the last three years. If gold is found in temples, there is no need to import gold from outside for next 3-4 years. It will be. That means the money of the country will remain in the country. By borrowing the gold of the temples, we can do just that. "
Temples have gold in the country, but does the Waqf Bard also have any gold stock?
We did not get any specific information on this question. But a data about Waqf's assets was found all over the country. On 9 August 2016 in the Rajya Sabha, in response to a written question by MP Hussain Dalwai, the Minority Ministry had said that according to the Sachar Committee report, there are 6 lakh acres of Waqf land across the country and is worth 1.2 lakh crores.
However, it did not include details of the encroached property. The ministry said that it does not consider the encroached property to be the property of Waqf, hence the details are not included in it. At the same time, in November last year, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had said that 16,937 properties of Waqf have been created by encroaching across the country.
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