During April-September, 2011, the imports had increased 66 percent to $29 billion.

“Notwithstanding the increase in international gold prices in 2012-13 (April-September), gold imports have shown a decline. Decline may have occurred due to increase in Customs duty on gold imports by the Government in January and March 2012,” Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

For the entire 2011-12 fiscal, gold imports stood at $56.2 billion.

“It may be noted that international gold prices have also increased significantly in recent years. Such behaviour of gold prices assumes importance for the building up of positive expectations of gold investors and hence might have partly contributed to the increase in gold imports in India,” Meena said.

During April-September 2012-13 fiscal, the value of gold imported by the Government and public sector stood at 18,026 crore and that of private sector was 92,501 crore, Meena added.

In his Budget proposal, the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had doubled the basic Customs duty on standard gold bars to four percent and on non-standard gold to 10 percent. He had also imposed one percent excise duty on unbranded jewellery.

In a separate reply, Meena said the net remittances by NRIs received in India in 2011-12 fiscal stood at $63,469 million.

The net remittances received in India in 2010-11 and 2009-10 stood at $53,124 million and $51,791 million, respectively.

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