With two-thirds of India’s gold held in rural areas, efforts to curb its imports with schemes to monetise holdings or convert them into paper bonds won’t have much sheen till the mindset towards physical possession of the precious metal is changed, experts maintain.

Their comments come against the backdrop of two schemes proposed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently for which the norms are awaited – one on monetisation or permitting gold deposits with banks for interest, and the other on redeemable gold sovereign bonds also with fixed interest.