WGC strikes gold on Akshaya Tritiya

The craze for buying gold on the auspicious day has seen a new high in recent years.
Kamal Shekhar, store head of C Krishniah Chetty and Sons, a jeweller on Commercial Street, feels that the entire affair of shopping gold on this day is chiefly an outcome of the efforts of the World Gold Council (WGC).

“The idea of popularising the occasion of Akshaya Tritiya was conceived in 2003. At that time, Diwali-Dhanteras was the prime gold buying period for customers. World Gold Council figured out that in order to expand the market further and to also balance the overall year with multiple gold buying occasions, it needed to find another equally auspicious day (as per the Hindu beliefs and calendar) in the first half of the year” said Keyur Shah, Associate Director of World Gold Council, Mumbai.

Akshaya Tritiya was found to be the most suitable and culturally most acceptable as an equally important gold buying period, he added.

“The sole objective of our organisation is to promote gold in all its forms. The yellow metal has prominence not only in the Indian society, but in other places around the world as well. The Chinese New Year is seen as an occasion to gift gold and the Turks consider gold as a gifting option in most of their celebrations” Shah said.

Publicity campaigns and other activities of the council has in every sense “paid off” as Akshaya Tritiya has emerged as the second- largest gold buying day in India. Last year, the sales figure was almost 50 tonnes and World Gold Council are surely aiming high.