Government's gold schemes are not attracting masses, says IGPC IIM-A study

In order to attract masses to invest in gold, the Indian government announced various gold investment and savings schemes, like the Gold Monetisation Scheme. However, these schemes got a lukewarm response by people due to lack of awareness, says a recent study by researchers of Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR), funded by India Gold Policy Centre (IGPC) of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

For the study, researchers covered 1000 respondents across four districts, namely Kolhapur in Maharashtra, Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Hooghly in West Bengal and Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

As per the results, out of total 1000 respondents, only five persons were aware about government's gold schemes, such as Gold Monetisation Scheme, Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme and Gold Coin Scheme.

"We found that people had little or no awareness about these three gold schemes, which were introduced two years back by the Centre. Out of 1000 respondents in four districts, only five knew about these schemes," said Misha Sharma, one of the researchers from IFMR.

Experts are of the opinion that the government should start marketing the schemes so that people can be made aware.

"Around 15,000 tonnes of gold, in the form of jewellery is lying idle with citizens across the country. The study had revealed that people are willing to invest in these schemes if they got adequate information about them. It shows that there is indeed a potential," said IGPC Head Prof. Arvind Sahay.

"Apart from beefing up marketing efforts, banks should also be motivated to promote gold loan, so that they go out and convince people to opt for such loans. We don't see such motivation by banks at present," he added.

(Image source Good Moneying)