Stalin hands over gold bonds worth Rs 10 crore to Irukkankudi Mariamman temple

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin on Wednesday handed over gold bonds worth Rs 10 crore to the Irukkankudi Mariamman temple in Virudhunagar district. A total of 27,250.500 grams of gold jewellery in the temple were converted into gold bars and deposited in a nationalised bank.
In October last year, the Tamil Nadu government announced that it would monetize the unutilised gold in temples, purify them, convert them into gold bars and deposit in the nationalised banks.
Gold that has been donated to temples over the past ten years were assessed and those that were not utilized were sent to the gold purifying facility of the Union government. They were purified and moulded into bars. The bars thus invested would bring revenue to the temples, which could be used for its various projects.
The temples were divided into three zones -- Chennai, Trichy and Madurai.
Retired judges were appointed to supervise the proceedings of this process in each zone. This scheme was inaugurated by the chief minister through video conferencing on October 13 last year.
Retired judge R Mala was in charge of the Irukkankudi temple gold conversion scheme in the Madurai zone.
A total of 27,250.500 grams of gold was segregated and sent to the central government facility on April 1. The gold bars were deposited in the SBI’s bullion branch in Mumbai on April 29. This gold deposit would generate an annual income of Rs 24 lakh for the temple as interest.