The most popular Mumbai’s two-century-old Shree Siddhivinayak temple may soon make the first substantial contribution to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan. The idea is to recycle the idle gold to meet fresh demand and thus reduce bullion imports, the second biggest expense on India’s import bill after oil.

India is the world’s second-biggest consumer of gold after China and is used for investment, religious donations and wedding gifts. The country’s insatiable appetite meant imports of the precious metal accounted for 28 percent of India’s trade deficit in the year ending March 2013.

One of the spoke person said that temple is considering depositing some of its 160 kilogrammes (kg) of gold with banks.

Sanjiv Patil, executive officer of the temple trust said that “We are planning to melt 40 kg of jewellery with lower purity to make bars and deposit those bars under the gold monetization scheme and a final decision will be made later this month”

The temples in India have collected billions of dollars in Jewellery, bars and coins over the centuries, hidden securely in vaults. Narendra Modi to deposit some of this with banks, in return for interest and cash at redemption. he government would melt the gold and loan it to jewellers.

Most of the people supported this decision. Earlier the temple has given 10 kg of gold to a bank under an old deposit scheme and getting the interest of 1 percent. But by this scheme banks are offering 2.5 percent.

Pati said that “it is the good scheme and the temple will deposit the jewellery that it failed to auction”.

A New Delhi-based businessmen, Rakesh Kapoor who visits the temple every time he is in Mumbai said that “Once devotees offer ornaments, it is the trust’s decision to decide what is good for the trust.”

Only a few people are opposing this scheme.“I don’t think the trust should melt offered jewellery to make bars. People may reconsider offering jewellery if the trust starts doing that,” said Madhuri Deshpande, a regular visitor.