The severe deflation in the Gold rates across the world has shown a deep affect on the Indian gods. According to a latest survey conducted by the World Gold Council, all the temples in India have incurred losses to the tune of a staggering 6 lakh crore due to gold rates deflation since the last one year.
The report further says that the Indian temples constitute of nearly 20,000 tonnes of gold reserves throughout the country. A majority of these gold reserves are through offerings from devotees. While most temple trusts deposit their gold in several banks, 80% of reserves still lie in the temples in the form of statuettes of the deities.
World’s richest temple, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam has gold reserves worth 70,000 crores all in the form of gold biscuits, bricks, statuettes, coins and ornaments. Of this, 80 to 100 kilo gold is offered by devotees each month. The TTD also deposited 2275 kilo gold in the State Back of India, Mumbai branch and another 1353 kilo gold is lying in the safety lockers of the Indian Overseas Bank in Hyderabad. Both these banks have been paying TTD an interest of 1.61% based on the previous rates.
The Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple in Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala has a staggering 3,000 tonnes of gold in its lockers. According to the last year’s gold rates, the total value is now worth more than 1 lakh crore. Yet another famous temple in Kerala, Guruvayor, has gold reserves of 600 kilo followed by the Sabarimalai temple also in Kerala, which receives up to 15 kilo gold and 105 crore cash as offerings from the devotees each year.
In the west, the famous Shirdi Saibaba Samsthan has 120 crore gold reserves, while the Vaishno Devi temple up north in Jammu has 1200 kilo gold. Apart from these, all other temples across the country add 20,000 tonnes more to the whole tally.
In September last year, the rate of one gram of gold in the international bullion was Rs. 2,615. The value depreciated to Rs. 2,254 by July this year, at 14.21% depreciation compared to that of the rates existing six months ago. On an average, 3 lakh rupees for 1 kilo gold at Rs. 300 for one gram has been depreciated, leading to a loss of 6 lakh crores for 20,000 tonnes gold.
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