Mumbai. India has moved 100 tonnes of its gold kept in Britain to domestic vaults in the financial year 2023-24. Sources gave this information on Friday. This is the largest transfer of gold since 1991. In the year 1991, a large part of the gold was taken out of the vaults to pledge to deal with the foreign exchange crisis. According to official data, the country’s total gold reserves increased by 27.46 tonnes in the financial year 2023-24 and increased to 822 tonnes.
Sources said that a large part of the gold is deposited abroad. Like other countries, India’s gold is also deposited with the Bank of England.
The return of 100 tonnes of gold to India has increased the total amount of gold stored locally to over 408 tonnes. This means that local and foreign holdings are now almost equal.
According to the annual report released by the central bank on Thursday, more than 308 tonnes of gold has been kept locally in exchange for the notes issued in 2023-24. Apart from this, 100.28 tonnes of gold has been kept locally as the property of the banking department.
Out of the total gold reserves, 413.79 tonnes of gold is kept abroad.
According to sources, in view of the gold purchases in the last few years, it was decided to reduce the gold pledged abroad, which is part of standard review processes. In 2009, India bought 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since then, it has been buying the yellow metal from the secondary market as part of its foreign exchange asset diversification efforts. Sources said that at present, gold is kept locally in high-security vaults in Mumbai and Nagpur.