India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, has shifted about 100 tonnes or 1 lakh kilograms of gold back to India from the United Kingdom. There is an intention to take more gold back to India in the coming months. According to a report in the Times of India, India has returned such a large amount of gold for the first time since 1991. Let us tell you, RBI had to face severe criticism in the year 1991, when it had to mortgage a part of its gold reserves due to the foreign exchange crisis in the country.
According to the news, this initiative has been taken by India due to logistical reasons as well as diversity of storage. Domestically, gold is stored in vaults located at Mint Road in Mumbai and the old RBI office building in Nagpur. According to the report, an official says that the Reserve Bank of India started buying gold a few years ago. Also decided to review where it wants to store gold. This is done from time to time. Since the stock was accumulating abroad, it was decided to bring some gold to India.
A source said that the accumulation of stock abroad reflects the strength and confidence of the economy, which is in stark contrast to the situation in 1991. For many central banks, the Bank of England traditionally serves as a reserve, and India is no exception, with some of its gold reserves stored in London since before independence. Data shows that the RBI had 822.1 tonnes of gold as of the end of March, of which 413.8 tonnes were stored abroad.
The Reserve Bank is among the central banks that have bought gold in recent years, adding 27.5 tonnes in the last financial year. RBI’s appetite for gold has also increased recently in recent years in India. This can be gauged from the fact that the central bank has bought 1.5 times more gold in January-April 2024 than in the whole of 2023. The annual consumption of gold in India is 700-800 tonnes.