Would you take your gold to the bank and walk out with a paper that gives you the promise to pay interest after a year? The government is hoping that you would so as to monetize some of the 20,000 tonnes of gold held by Indian households. The draft guidelines to the gold monetization scheme came out last week—you can read them here:http://mintne.ws/1F7KyD3 . The scheme works like this: you need a minimum of 30 grams of gold to participate. Let’s assume you take 100 grams of gold coins that are lying in the locker and want to deposit them. You’ll need about half a day at your disposal to complete the process—so take all the gold you don’t need and you’re happy to deposit, rather than going again and wasting another half a day. You take the gold to a hallmarking centre (your bank will tell you where it is) to certify the purity of the metal. Once you know the purity and weight, you fill a KYC (know-your-customer) form and agree to the gold getting melted. The gold will then be melted in front of you, and you can now take the gold back or deposit it and walk out with a deposit certificate with the purity and weight details on it. This certificate is taken to a bank where a gold savings account is opened and the gold deposited with the verification centre.