Stalin hands over gold deposit bond worth Rs 46 crore to temple

CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday handed over a gold deposit bond worth Rs 46.31 crore from the State Bank of India (SBI) to HR&CE officials from the Bhavani Amman temple at Periyapalayam in Tiruvallur district in the presence of Minister PK Sekar Babu. 

An official release said gold biscuits weighing 91.61 kg (which had been made out of gold offerings worth Rs 46.31 crore) have been deposited with the SBI’s Mumbai branch. Through this, the temple would get Rs 1.04 crore as interest a year.

Last year, it was announced that gold offerings given by devotees in the past 10 years and left unused by temples, would be melted at the government mint in Mumbai and the pure gold thus received would be deposited in banks to net additional revenue.

To monitor this, committees headed by retired judges were formed. For the Chennai zone, a committee headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court, Duraisamy Raju, oversaw the process of sending unused gold offerings for melting in the government mint in Mumbai.