Gold price today at Rs 54,550 per 10 gm, silver trends at Rs 66,360 a kg

Gold prices today jumped to 54,550 from Rs 54,540 per 10 gram a day before, while silver jumped to Rs 66,360 from Rs 65,350 per kg, according to Good Returns website.

Gold jewellery prices vary across India, the second-largest consumer of the metal, due to excise duty, state taxes, and making charges.

In New Delhi, the price of 22-carat gold jumped to Rs 50,010 per 10 gram, and in Chennai to Rs 49,130. In Mumbai, the rate was Rs 50,460, according to the Good Returns website. The price of 24-carat gold in Chennai was Rs 53,590 per 10 gm.

On MCX, October gold futures jumped by 1.07 per cent to Rs 51,448 per 10 gram. Silver September futures stood at Rs 65,976 per kg.

The Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council has proposed changes in the revamped gold deposit scheme to make it more attractive, enable its larger acceptance and garner additional deposits of idle gold in the country.

The council suggested changes to the Revamped Gold Deposit Scheme (R-GDS) in a video conference with Tarun Bajaj, Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, recently, the GPEPC said.

The Revamped Gold Deposit Scheme, which was formulated to mobilise and productively use idle gold held by households and institutions (estimated to be over 24,000 tonnes), has not yielded the desired results, garnering deposits of only around 20 tonnes of gold, the council said.

The council has proposed to link the R-GMS with the Income Tax Act which states that gold jewellery to the extent of 500 grams per married women, 250 grams per unmarried women and 100 grams per male member of a family need not be seized.

The council has also recommended that market tradable e-deposit certificates can be issued to the depositor having attributes like a unique certificate number accounted for digitally, under the R-GDS, in Demat format. It has also recommended that the minimum threshold limit of 30 grams under the scheme be reduced to 10 grams and gold be accepted in fractions thereof.