With a view to bring privately held stock of gold in circulation, reduce the country's reliance on import of gold. Also providing its owners with some income apart from freeing them from the problems of storage, movement and security of gold in their possession, the RBI said.

Earlier, deposits were available within a maturity range from three to seven years Now, it is reduced to ranging from six months to seven years.

Further, it said that trust including Mutual Funds/Exchange Traded Funds registered under SEBI (Mutual Fund) Regulations may deposit under the scheme.

The Resident Indians including HUF, Trusts, Companies may invest in the scheme.

It has now been decided that authorised banks would not be required to obtain prior approval of RBI for introducing the scheme. Banks should, however, inform the details of the scheme including names of branches operating the scheme to RBI, the RBI said in the notification.

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