Govt extends issue date for gold bonds to November 30

 The issue date for sovereign gold bonds has been extended from November 26 to November 30. The step comes as the government is faced with rising demand from households for the gold deposit schemes.

It may be recalled that the government was able to collect a meagre 400 grams through gold deposit ever since it opened the scheme for public.

"Large number of applications has been received by the banks and post offices for Sovereign Gold Bonds, 2015-16. To enable smooth uploading of applications into RBI’s E-kuber system, particularly by the post offices, it has since been decided to shift the issue date of the Sovereign Gold Bonds from November 26, 2015 to November 30, 2015," an official release said.

The first tranche of Sovereign Gold Bonds was open for subscription from November 5 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched three gold related schemes – gold monetisation, gold bonds and gold coins aiming at putting the household and temple gold into productive use.

According to the original schedule, bonds were to be issued on November 26. Banks and designated post offices will eligible to issue bonds.

On the lukewarm response to gold deposit schemes, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently said that the gold bond scheme will continue to be launched in tranches in future.