Indicating increased popularity of the government’s schemes to mobilise idle gold deposits with households, the second tranche of the Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme has received about 3.16 lakh applications for 2,790 kg gold involving subscription of ₹726 crore.
“Second tranche of Gold Bonds: Outcome significantly better than 1st tranche. Scheme picking up,” Economic Affairs Secretary Shakitkanta Das tweeted on Thursday.
The Finance Ministry, in a release said, the trend during the second tranche shows that the scheme is picking-up amongst the investors with higher awareness and more clarity about the provisions.
Under the scheme, individuals can invest in bonds of up to 500 gram of gold annually and earn interest on it. For 2015-16, the government has fixed a return of 2.75 per annum, payable on half yearly basis.
“These bonds will be issued on February 8, 2016,” it said, adding that the actual figure may vary as more information is received from all the authorised receiving agencies.
The first tranche in November received about 62,169 applications for a total of ₹ 246.2 crore for 915.953 kg of gold.
The government has also received over 900 kg of gold in the related gold monetisation scheme.