New Delhi: Buying gold or investing in gold is the first choice of Indian people. India is also among the top countries in the world in terms of importing gold. But, a large amount of money goes abroad in the import of gold.

In such a situation, the government adopted a strategy to promote digital gold and launched Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) in November 2015. This is a safe and simple option to invest in physical gold instead of buying it. In this bond, the investor gets the benefit of interest along with the increase in gold prices. This means that investors get double benefit.

Now the first series of gold bonds is going to mature in November this year. Investors will become rich after the bonds mature after 8 years, but it is becoming a loss-making deal for the government. It is expected that this will increase the burden on the government treasury.

How will the government incur loss

The government hoped that it would not have to spend much money on returns in SGB. The only way to do this was if the price of gold increased slowly and over a long period of time. But, since 2015, the price of gold has risen sharply.

In 2016, gold prices rose by 8.65 percent. Similarly, the price of gold rose by 12 percent in 2019 and 38 percent in 2020. Understand it like this, where the price of gold was Rs 28,623 per 10 grams in 2016, it rose to Rs 71,510 in 2024.

The government will have to pay a huge amount

In 2015, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued SGB bonds at the rate of Rs 2684 per gram in the first series. Through this series, the government raised more than Rs 245 crore. For investors who held the bonds for 8 years, the redemption price became Rs 6,132 per gram.

Due to the rise in bond prices, the government will pay around Rs 560 crore to the investors. Apart from this, interest of about Rs 49 crore will also have to be paid.

There are many problems facing the government

The government pays regular interest to investors on sovereign gold bonds. Although this interest rate is only 2.5 percent, when millions of investors invest in it, this interest payment can put a big burden on the government treasury. This burden of interest increases over time, especially when gold prices rise.

If a large number of investors come together to redeem their bonds, it may be difficult for the government to maintain cash flow. Due to this, the government may have to cut down on its other schemes and financial priorities.

If interest rates rise in the market, investors may prefer to invest in other more profitable instruments than sovereign gold bonds. This may make it difficult for the government to issue new bonds and may have to increase the interest rate on existing bonds, which may further increase the financial burden.