When contacted in Mumbai, the RBI spokesperson Alpana Killawala admitted that they have written to these temples but clarified that “the objective of the letter is to collect data and mentioned in the RBI statement issued on September 1, there is no proposal under its consideration (to buy gold and bullion from temples).”
Last year the Sree Padmanabhaswami Temple in the state capital shot into fame after it was discovered that the temple is home to gold jewellery worth trillions of rupees. At the then prevailing price it was said the haul was worth over Rs 1.3 trillion.
“This is for the first time that we are getting such a notice from the RBI. We have not decided how to respond to it as the temple managing committee is yet to be reconstituted by the government,” a senior official of the Guruvayur Devaswom told PTI, requesting anonymity.
Earlier, towards the end of last month, there were media reports that the RBI was planning to buy idle gold from temples and convert it into bullion. The report had led to a ruckus in Parliament and the RBI admitted that it wrote to the temples seeking details and that meant to just get the data and not anything else.
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