Indra’s Drishtikona (Viewpoint)

How rich are Indians?

Posted : July 8, 2004 at 5:53 am [IST]

Every now and then you get a bad feel from some grim news about poverty in India. But gold has remained on the top of possession ambitions for Indian people for centuries. Whenever an old house is demolished, the owners hope to discover some concealed valuables. Lust for the gold continues. Government took many initiatives to bring out and use the huge undeclared assets of the country in form of gold, but has failed. No one will like to part with inherited gold unless there is an emergency in family.

Indians buy 825 tonnes of gold every year worth $7 billion.

As per one estimate, Indian public has a stock of gold as personal investment worth Rs.6,50,000 crore. 1 kg of gold costs about Rs 5,50,000. I think it to be gross underestimate. With even 10 grams gold with some 250 crore of the women, the value goes up to 13, 75, 000 crore. When I talked to a cross section of friends, the estimate of average possession was anything between 50 grams to 259 grams.

And think of the other aspect how a common man gets cheated every time he buys some jewelery of gold. As per report, jewelers in India are estimated to dupe to the tune of Rs, 9500 crore annually by selling gold products with much less gold purity than claimed. Normally jewelers claim to give 22 karate gold in ornaments. But as hall making or any other standard is not mandatory, it can be as low as 15-19 karate. In rural areas the extent of impurity is much more. I remember once we got melted an ornament which we thought was 60 grams of gold in weight. We got only 15 grams. The ornament was from a village jeweler. With 65% of the gold going into rural areas, the extent of purity becomes more critical

Indian exports amounted for $9 billion in the world’s $80 billion retail jewelery market

And some million people are employed in this sector. Some urgent steps must be taken to save the massive cheating of the people at large. Hall marking must be mandatory for all the jewelry that is sold. An education drive is also a necessity. However, here my objective was to tell about the richness of a major portion of Indian population that is hardly known. Can some one correct my estimate?

- Indra

Category: Religious/Social issues |