Shopping for gold: Gold is brought in biscuit form from government authorised agencies and banks like the State Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, Corporation Bank and the MMTC Ltd (Metals and Minerals trading corporation Ltd . Each piece weighs 10 tolas (1 tola is 11.664gms). Biscuits are also available in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 31.6, 50gms etc. Big merchants who in turn sell it to the smaller jewellers bring gold biscuits from authorised agencies. Of course, the merchants have the option of using the whole stock, which is rarely done.
Merchandise: There are about 100 big businesses in the state. i.e those having more than 35kg in stock. Of them about 50 gold merchants own more than 75 to 100 kg. Any major market place in any town in Kerala boasts of 60-80 jewellers. Earlier, the requirement of licence issued by the Central Excise department was a must for setting up of a gold shop. Since it has been lifted, the numbers have increased tremendously.
Brisk business: On a normal day, sales from 100gms to 10kg unofficially. There are instances of jewellers selling 22 kgs of gold ornaments on a single day. In the bigger cities and bigger businesses, it goes upto 40kg unofficially.
There are almost 50-60 types of thin bangles in the market on a normal day. Festival and marriage season, it may vary. One can find about 1000 designs of necklaces while there would be about 20-30 different types of chains in a jeweller's shop on any given day.
Arab gold: NRIs from the Gulf were active participants to this business in the state. With tighter custom checks and gulf-returnees on the increase, those doors have almost closed.
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