Gold-rich temples weigh monetisation, but 'melting' a dampener

New Delhi, Dec 20: As the government seeks to monetise gold worth an estimated USD one trillion lying idle, all eyes are on their biggest repositories -- the temples -- but many of them fear that 'melting' of the ornaments donated by devotees may hurt religious sentiments.

Officials at a number of rich and famous temples across the country said they may not be able to immediately participate in the scheme, while a few others said the scheme was worth exploring but a final decision was yet to be taken.

For some temples, including Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala and the Shirdi Sai Baba temple in Maharashtra, the ongoing court cases are coming in the way.

The interest remains lukewarm among major temples in Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana and Rajasthan among other states, while a few in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Gujarat have shown initial interest.

However, most of them are concerned about issues like loss of value in the melting process and the religious sentiments of the devotees who donate gold ornaments in the name of the deities of the respective temples.

The Gold Monetisation Scheme, an ambitious initiative launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month, aims to bring an estimated 22,000 tonnes of gold lying idle with households, religious institutions and others into the financial system in return for a regular interest payout and the market-linked appreciation value.

The gold can be deposited even in the jewellery form, but it gets melted and the value is determined after testing its purity.

The depositor can choose an option to get back the gold at a later date in the equivalent of '995 fineness gold or Indian rupees' as they desire, but not in the same form.

Among various temples in Gujarat, the famous Ambaji temple has ruled out depositing its gold for the scheme at present, while Somnath temple has prepared a proposal in this regard and a final decision would be taken by its trustees.

Dwarkadhish temple in Devbhumi Dwarka is yet to take a call, but the chairman of the temple trust committee H K Patel said the scheme was worth giving a thought.

The famous Siddhivinayak Temple in Mumbai also appears interested in exploring the scheme as it is looking at options to utilise its 160 kg of gold reserves, out of which about 10 kg is already deposited with a bank.

The high-level Investment Committee of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which manages the world's richest Hindu temple of Sri Venkateswara Swamy, will also meet soon to discuss the issue of depositing its gold under this scheme.

Kanakadurgamma Temple in Vijayawada, the second richest temple in Andhra Pradesh, however has no plans to participate in this scheme, while neighbouring Telangana government has not taken any decision as yet on participating in the Scheme.

The Devaswom Boards controlling most of the temples in Kerala are showing mostly lukewarm response to the central government's scheme, except for the Guruvayour Devaswom that manages the famous Sree Krishna Temple at Guruvaoyur.

State Minister for Devaswom V S Sivakumar said the Devaswom boards are autonomous bodies and the government cannot give any direction on matters like these.

"It is for the respective Devaswom Boards to take a decision," he said. In case of the Travancore and Cochin devaswom boards, any decision on such matters would need to be ratified by the Kerala High Court, which is the audit and expenditure controller of these Boards.

Besides, the gold in custody of most of these temples are in the form of small jewellery items and the Devaswom boards fear that they would have to bear a loss as the jewellery would be melted after being deposited under the scheme.

Officials said the boards also fear that any loss of weight after melting would unnecessarily invite allegations of irregularities and corruption.

"So, boards have not shown much interest in the scheme," a senior official in the state government said.

Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) President Prayar Gopalakrishnan, who took charge of the office last month, said that he was yet to study the details of the scheme.

The famous Lord Ayyappa Temple at Sabarimala, visited by millions every year, is among the several shrines under TDB.

Cochin Devaswom Board (CDB) member E A Rajan said it does not have surplus gold that could be deposited under the scheme. "Gold in the temples are used to attire the idols. They are in jewellery form," he said.

The famous Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple's Executive Officer K N Sateesh said all temple affairs were under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court.

"We cannot say anything on these matters now," he said while adding that everything will depend on the court decision. Guruvayour Devaswom, which manages the famous and one of the riches temples Sree Krishna shrine at Guruvayour, said there was no problem in participating in the scheme but they did not have any excess gold to deposit at present.

"There is no problem for us to deposit in the scheme," Mallessery Parameswaran Namboothirpad, Member (Administrative) of the Managing Committee, said.

Nearly 500 kg gold was already deposited under a scheme with State Bank of India, he said, while adding that the temple receives an average of three kg of gold every month. "We are ready to deposit in the scheme. But at present we do not have any surplus," he added.

PTI