The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which is sitting on an enviable pile of gold deposits weighing 4,335 kilograms in various banks, on Saturday added a whopping 1,800 kg under the State Bank of India’s (SBI) ‘Gold Deposit Scheme’ for a period of five years.
TTD Executive Officer M.G. Gopal symbolically handed over the gold, which includes ornaments, articles, gold on copper items etc., to the SBI Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya, who formally presented him the provisional certificates. The gold will be melted at Government Mint, Mumbai, and the pure gold of 0.995 purity is taken as deposit, for which the bank will bear the transportation, transit insurance, melting and refining charges.
The TTD has 4,335 kg of pure gold under deposit with SBI, Corporation Bank and Indian Overseas Bank, through which it earns a collective interest of 70 kg every year.
On maturity of gold deposits in 2010, the TTD converted the interest earned into gold form and deposited it back.
