By Shefali Anand
While the recently discovered treasure in a Kerala temple has grabbed the world’s attention, India’s real treasure is hidden elsewhere.
                                                   

It’s in steel cupboards and in bank vaults across the country, where India’s housewives and other private owners have stashed their jewelry and gold savings. India’s private gold holdings probably total 15,000 tons, according to an estimate by Citigroup analysts in May. Some jewelers like T.K. Chandiran of Coimbatore thinks this number is too conservative, and the real amount is more like 30,000 tons, counting other hidden temple treasures.

These private stores are in addition to the 560 tons of gold kept as reserves with the Reserve Bank of India, which are worth around $26 billion.

If we stick with the conservative 15,000-ton estimate, at the current gold price of $1,549 per ounce, India’s private gold holdings are worth approximately $743 billion.

But this is not all in the purest form of gold, so let’s knock 20% off this amount to reflect what this gold could be worth now. That would be a cool $600 billion. The Kerala temple treasure, by the way, is only an estimated $22 billion, although there could be more riches in a still sealed vault that the Supreme Court is scheduled to hold a hearing on today.

So what would happen if all of India’s private gold could be released into the system? Here are some options:


Win India’s neighbors over…

By buying them. The $600 billion could be used to buy Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar and Bhutan, whose Gross Domestic Product add up to just $390 billion, according to the CIA World Factbook.

That still leaves $210 billion. That’s nearly enough to cover Malaysia, with a GDP of around $240 billion.

Of course, the one neighbor we can’t touch is China with its nearly $6 trillion GDP. India’s GDP, in comparison, is just $1.5 trillion.

This is good plan but GDP don't tell about real worth of the country..


Heal the world.

Benevolent housewives would also have the power to help some foreign countries which have been struggling in recent years.

They should probably start with Greece. Normally, we wouldn’t care much about this country, but their precarious financial situation has caused much anxiety throughout the world in recent months, and some economists fear Europe’s sovereign debt troubles could rebound on the U.S., which in turn could hurt India. Greece has become the go-to excuse for market analysts every time stocks fall somewhere in the world, including India.

The housewives could end its problems once and for all by paying off Greece’s entire national debt – long and short-term – of around $474 billion.

That still leaves us with $126 billion.

It would be nice to also help our “strategic partners” the United States of America, which has been in deep financial trouble in recent years.

But like many things in America, their financial problems are super-sized.

Their budgeted fiscal deficit for 2012 is around $1.1 trillion, and their national debt at $14 trillion is enormous.

The best we can do is to help wipe out their trade deficit which stood at $44 billion in April.

But since we wouldn’t want our other powerful friend, Russia, to feel slighted, we can pay them the $36 billion we promised for creating next generation stealth fighter aircraft.

Indian Housewives aren't interested in this kind of help or healing.. :pagel:


Building Blocks.

On a more serious note, India’s gold treasures could be used in several ways to help develop the country.

Food, education, housing – all of these need urgent investment, so our gold buyers can take their pick.

One of the options could be to use the money to build roads, power plants and other much-needed infrastructure in India. The Planning Commission says India needs to invest $1 trillion between April 2012 through March 2017 to develop infrastructure needed to keep India’s economy growing at 9% or ideally higher.
Gold owners can fund half of this.

The remaining $100 billion can be used to hire more doctors in hospitals and add more beds in them. That level of investment could help bring India’s healthcare standards to “50-75 percent of the present levels of other developing countries,” says a report by the World Health Organization.

I think this is good idea and i hope Indian society and even Arabs(having lots of gold) should try to realize this and shouldn't hide so much valuable stuff in their cupboards.

Quench Oil Thirst.

The gold hoards can also pay for all of India’s oil imports for the next six years. India imports two-thirds of its oil requirements. Last year India’s oil import bill came to around $106 billion, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told reporters in June.

Once oil is taken care of, it will automatically help turn the fate of several key economic issues for us – the trade deficit will turn into a trade surplus, and the fiscal deficit will come under control, and importantly also help bring down persistent inflation.

this part is not so thoughtful, If this gold will be used once to buy oil for 6 years but whats going to happen after 6 years and whatever money would be saved during this period that would be looted by greedy politicians..

well, this is really different perspective described in this article because when i compare kind of Jewellery worn by ladies in Punjab(India) and United States. Its a huge difference as Indian ladies wear more Gold and Diamonds and here in US, Costume jewellery is more common which don't worth much.
and Government has no information about that property.
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