Gold Rate in Patna Today – 7 Nov 2026, 12 AM IST

The figures in the live table are bullion reference rates for Patna, quoted per gram across 24 karat gold at 99.9 percent purity, 22 karat at 91.6 percent, 18 karat at 75 percent and 14 karat at 58.5 percent, refreshed every business day against MCX and IBJA benchmarks.

What each karat is used for in Patna

• 24 karat | 99.9 percent pure | coins and bars for investment | the reference all other grades derive from
• 22 karat | 91.6 percent pure, called 916 | the overwhelming majority of what Patna buys, including traditional Bihari bridal work
• 18 karat | 75 percent pure | diamond and gemstone settings, and lighter contemporary pieces
• 14 karat | 58.5 percent pure | lightweight everyday designs, a growing share as prices have risen

What these rates include and exclude

• Included | the value of the gold itself at the stated purity
• Excluded | making charges, quoted in Patna in rupees per gram rather than as a percentage
• Excluded | GST at 3 percent, applied at billing
• Excluded | the value of any stones set into the piece
• Excluded | hallmarking charges, levied per piece

One economic fact shapes this market more than any other. Bihar has the lowest per capita income of any Indian state, and that changes how households respond to a rising gold price. Where a wealthier city buys a lighter gold piece, a great many families here move to silver instead. This is the one market on this site where the silver rate is not a footnote.

The weight table converts today's per gram rate into the denominations Patna buyers transact in, from a single gram through 10 grams, 50 grams, 100 grams and a kilogram, at each of the four common purities.

Units used in the Patna market

Patna follows the northern Indian convention of quoting per gram and per 10 grams, and the tola at 10 grams remains in everyday use in the Bakerganj trade. The local unit aligns with the modern 10 gram standard, so there is no conversion trap of the kind that catches buyers comparing a Kolkata bhori at 11.66 grams or a southern sovereign at 8 grams.

That last point is worth noting because Patna prices track Kolkata closely, and Kolkata quotes in bhori. A Bihar buyer comparing against a Bengal figure needs to convert, even though the underlying rate is nearly identical.

International markets quote the troy ounce, at 31.1035 grams. Gemstones are quoted in carats, where one carat is 0.2 grams.

Why the small weights matter most here

On most city pages the one and two gram rows are included for completeness. In Patna they are the working numbers for a large share of buyers, because a great many households accumulate gold in very small quantities as and when income allows.

That has a cost worth knowing. Small purchases carry proportionally higher making charges, and buying one gram eight times over a year costs more in labour than buying eight grams once. Where the discipline of small regular buying is what makes saving possible, that trade off is reasonable. Where a household could wait and buy in one go, waiting is cheaper.

A single day's rate tells you very little. The last ten sessions tell you whether today's print sits at the top of a run, at the bottom of a pullback, or in the middle of a flat stretch.

Read three things from the ten day table. The net movement from the earliest session to today. The high and the low, which give the trading range. And whether daily changes are small and steady or large and alternating.

Patna prices track Kolkata closely, usually within a narrow band, because Bihar draws on the eastern trade. The Bihar Bullion Association distributes the daily reference the city's jewellers work from, which is why quotes across Patna are broadly consistent on a given day.

Watch the silver line alongside it

In most cities the ten day gold table is read on its own. In Patna it is worth reading against silver, because the two move together and the ratio between them decides what a large number of households actually buy.

When gold runs sharply ahead, silver purchases rise, particularly for the ceremonial items Bihari festivals require. That is not a downgrade or a compromise. It is a household making a sensible decision about what it can afford in a year when the metal it would prefer has moved out of reach.

For a purchase tied to a wedding date or to Chhath, none of this changes the plan. For a discretionary purchase, the ten day range is the cheapest timing information available.

The trend table sets today's Patna rate against its opening and closing values over seven days, 30 days, three months, six months, the year to date and 12 months.

What each window tells you

The seven and 30 day windows capture sentiment: short term positioning, fund flows and reaction to news. The three and six month windows capture the macro cycle, principally the direction of real interest rates and the strength of the dollar. The 12 month and year to date windows capture the structural story, which in recent years has been sustained central bank accumulation alongside steady retail demand across Asia.

Longer windows are more reliable and less actionable. A 12 month gain confirms the asset did its job in a portfolio. It tells you nothing useful about next week's rate.

The remittance overlay

Bihar is one of India's largest sources of internal migrant labour. Households across the state receive money from members working in Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra, Gujarat and elsewhere, and a meaningful share of local gold buying is funded that way.

That is domestic remittance rather than international, which matters for reading this table. Unlike a Kerala family earning in Gulf currency, a Bihar household receiving rupees from Delhi has no currency effect working for or against it. The rupee gold price is simply the price, with nothing offsetting it.

So a rising 12 month trend is felt here without any cushion at all, and that is part of why the shift to silver during strong gold rallies is so pronounced in this market.

The annual table shows the year end 24 karat rate per 10 grams across the last decade, with the change from the previous year.

What a decade of year end prices tells you

• The compounding is uneven | long flat stretches punctuated by sharp rallies, with most of the decade gain in a few years
• Entry point matters | buying at a rally peak has meant waiting years to recover in real terms
• Part of the gain is currency | a weaker rupee lifts the Indian price even when international gold is flat
• Duty changes create steps | a customs duty revision moves the retail rate independently of the world market
• Year end is one day | a single annual print hides the range the metal traded through that year

Long range figures are useful for context and poor for timing.

How this reads against local incomes

There is an uncomfortable arithmetic worth stating. Over the past decade the gold price has risen considerably faster than average incomes in Bihar. A wedding purchase that a family could manage ten years ago represents a materially larger share of annual income today.

That is the real story behind falling purchase weights, the growth of lighter pieces, and the shift toward silver. It is not changing taste. It is the same social expectations meeting a metal that has moved further away.

A household reading this chart should draw a practical conclusion rather than a discouraging one. Buy by weight you can afford rather than by weight convention suggests, keep the making charge low, and do not borrow at high cost to close the gap.

The rate quoted in Bakerganj is the last link in a chain that begins several hours earlier and several thousand kilometres away.

Step one: the international benchmark

Gold trades continuously in US dollars per troy ounce, anchored by the London Bullion Market Association price and by COMEX futures. Nothing in the Indian market is priced independently of it.

Step two: the rupee conversion

The dollar price is converted at the prevailing USD to INR rate. A weaker rupee raises the domestic price even when the international price has not moved.

Step three: duty and levies

Basic customs duty and the Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Cess apply to landed value, because India imports almost all the gold it consumes. Bihar levies no additional state tax on gold beyond GST.

Step four: the local reference

MCX futures and IBJA rates give the trade a common national reference, and the Bihar Bullion Association distributes the daily rate the state's jewellers work from. That is why quotes across Patna are consistent on a given day, and why the rate is not something to shop around for.

Step five: the Patna premium

Bihar is landlocked and Patna sits far from any port, so metal reaches the city through the eastern trade after passing through Kolkata. Patna therefore prices close to Kolkata, typically within a very narrow band, and above the port cities by the cost of getting the metal here.

This is a price taking market. It receives a rate rather than setting one, and there is nothing unusual in that.

The practical conclusion. The rate is fixed and identical wherever you go in the city. The making charge is not, and in Patna it is quoted in rupees per gram, which makes it unusually easy to compare between shops if you remember to ask for that figure explicitly.

Seven forces account for almost all daily movement. The first four are global, the last three domestic.

Real interest rates. Gold pays no income, so it competes with interest bearing assets. When inflation adjusted yields fall, holding gold costs less in opportunity terms and the price tends to rise. This is the most reliable single driver.

The US dollar. Gold is priced in dollars, so a stronger dollar generally pushes the international price down and a weaker dollar lifts it.

Central bank demand. Reserve buying has been large and persistent in recent years and is far less price sensitive than retail demand.

Geopolitical and financial stress. Conflict, banking stress and sovereign risk push capital toward assets with no counterparty.

The rupee. A weaker rupee raises the Patna rate on its own, independent of any move in international gold.

Bihari seasonal demand, which is unusually concentrated. Chhath Puja in October or November is the state's defining festival and drives heavy buying, particularly of silver items. Dhanteras and Diwali fall alongside it. Durga Puja, Saraswati Puja at Vasant Panchami and Akshaya Tritiya each carry their own buying, and the Lagna wedding season runs through the winter months.

Policy. Import duty revisions and GST decisions produce one off steps in the retail price with no connection to the international market.

One local factor worth adding. Migrant workers return home for Chhath in very large numbers, and they frequently bring accumulated earnings with them. That produces a buying surge tied to a homecoming rather than purely to a festival, and it is specific to Bihar.

Gold supply is unusually inelastic. New mine output grows slowly and responds to a price rise only after several years, because discovery, permitting and construction typically runs well over a decade. A price spike cannot call forth new supply the way it can in most commodities.

Recycling is the flexible part. When prices rise sharply, households sell old jewellery and refined scrap returns to the market, cushioning the move.

Distress selling is not the same as profit taking

That recycling figure hides two very different behaviours. A wealthy household selling into a rally is taking a profit. A household selling because a medical bill arrived and there was no other money is doing something else entirely, and the price rise is incidental to the decision.

In a state with low incomes and limited access to formal credit, a larger share of the gold coming back to the market is the second kind. It is worth naming, because national commentary on Indian scrap supply tends to describe it all as price responsive selling, and that is not accurate for everyone.

The practical implication for a household is section 37's point in advance: pledging gold usually beats selling it, because a loan can be repaid and a sale cannot be reversed.

Patna's position in the chain

Patna is a retail market rather than a manufacturing or bullion centre. Finished stock arrives from Kolkata and elsewhere, and the traditional Bihari forms are made by karigars working for individual shops rather than in a large workshop cluster. That limits design range compared with a manufacturing city and keeps the trade close to its customers.

On the demand side, central bank reserve buying has been the structural change of recent years, and it puts a firmer floor under the metal than retail demand alone would.

Nobody knows, and any page giving a confident target figure is guessing. What can be set out honestly is the conditions under which the rate would fall and those under which it would rise.

Conditions that would push the Patna rate down

A sustained rise in real interest rates. A materially stronger dollar. A rupee that strengthens. A cut in import duty, which produces an immediate one off drop unrelated to the international market. A slowdown in central bank buying.

Conditions that would push it up

Falling real yields. A weaker rupee. Renewed geopolitical or banking stress. Continued reserve accumulation. A duty increase. Heavy Chhath and Lagna season demand, which firms the local premium even when the national benchmark is unchanged.

A caution about who is asking

Predictions about gold circulate widely and are frequently attached to something being sold: a scheme, a chit fund, a trading service. In a market where formal financial advice is less available, that kind of confident forecasting fills a gap it should not.

Treat any specific prediction as information about the person making it. Nobody knows where gold will be next year, and anybody who claims to and also wants your money is telling you something useful about themselves rather than about the market.

For a buyer with a fixed occasion, none of this should change the decision. For a discretionary purchase, buying in instalments across several months converts a timing decision you cannot win into an averaging decision you do not need to win.

916 is another way of writing 22 karat. It refers to 91.6 percent pure gold, with the remaining 8.4 percent made up of alloy metals that give the piece strength. On 18 karat the equivalent grade is 750, and on 14 karat it is 585.

916 carries the overwhelming majority of jewellery sold in Patna, including the traditional Bihari bridal forms that Bakerganj and Hathwa Market are known for.

The number is not marketing language. It is the purity grade stamped by a BIS recognised assaying and hallmarking centre, and it appears alongside the BIS logo and a six character HUID.

Why this matters most where gold is the only savings

For a household whose jewellery is its entire financial reserve, the difference between claimed and actual purity is not a technicality. It is the difference between the reserve being what you think it is and being several percent less.

On a family holding built up over twenty years, a three percent shortfall against the assumed purity is a meaningful sum, and it only surfaces at the moment you most need the money. Verification at purchase is free. Discovering the gap at sale is expensive.

When you resell, exchange or pledge, the 916 grade determines the value you are credited. A verified hallmark negotiates from a known purity. Anything else negotiates from the buyer's assessment, and that assessment will not favour you.

The karat scale measures gold content in parts of 24. 24 karat is gold with no meaningful alloy content, usually expressed as 99.9 percent purity and stamped 999.

Pure gold is soft. It bends under everyday pressure, scratches easily and will not hold a stone setting or a clasp securely. This is why almost no wearable jewellery is made in 24 karat, and why a seller offering 24 karat bangles should be treated with caution.

Where 24 karat belongs is investment. Coins and minted bars are made at 999 or 999.9 purity and carry minimal making cost.

The case for coins in a low income market

This deserves emphasis here more than on most city pages. Where making charges run at several hundred rupees per gram on jewellery and almost nothing on a coin, the difference compounds significantly for a household saving small amounts over years.

A family that accumulates in coins keeps close to the full value of what it puts in. A family that accumulates in light jewellery loses a slice of every purchase to labour it will never recover. Over a decade of small buying, that gap is substantial.

The counterargument is real and should be acknowledged. Jewellery is worn, given at weddings and carries social meaning that a coin does not. The answer is not to choose one but to be clear which purchase is which, and to hold the savings portion in coins rather than in another chain.

Patna quotes making charges in rupees per gram rather than as a percentage of gold value, commonly somewhere in the range of 170 to 420 rupees per gram depending on the piece and the shop.

That convention has one significant advantage for a buyer. A per gram figure is directly comparable between shops without any calculation, and it does not inflate when the gold price rises, which a percentage charge does.

A worked example, line by line

The figures below use an illustrative 22 karat rate of 12,000 rupees per gram purely to keep the arithmetic readable. Substitute today's actual rate. The piece is a 10 gram 22 karat chain at 250 rupees per gram making.

• Gold value | 10 grams at 12,000 per gram | 1,20,000 rupees
• Making charges | 10 grams at 250 per gram | 2,500 rupees
• Subtotal before tax | 1,22,500 rupees
• GST | 3 percent on the subtotal | 3,675 rupees
• Hallmarking | per piece charge plus tax | approximately 45 rupees
• Final billed amount | approximately 1,26,220 rupees

The same chain across the Patna market

• 170 per gram, plain chain from a Bakerganj dealer | approximately 1,25,373 rupees
• 250 per gram, standard local work | approximately 1,26,220 rupees
• 420 per gram, branded showroom or intricate traditional piece | approximately 1,28,020 rupees

On 10 grams that spread is around 2,600 rupees. On a 60 gram wedding set it is closer to 16,000 rupees, and that is the sum worth an afternoon of comparison.

The trap in a per gram convention

A per gram charge scales strictly with weight, so a heavier piece carries no built in discount. Buyers frequently assume volume works in their favour on a substantial set. It does not unless you negotiate it, and on a heavy traditional piece that negotiation is worth having.

Ask separately whether wastage is charged on top, since some shops apply it and others fold it into the per gram figure.

How GST is applied

In most Patna retail invoices the jewellery is billed as a composite supply and 3 percent GST is charged on the combined value of gold and making. Where making is billed separately as job work, 5 percent can apply to that line instead.

A complete invoice protects you at purchase, at resale, at pledge and at tax time. Where gold is a household's main financial asset, the paperwork is part of the asset.

The invoice checklist

• Gross weight | total weight including stones | why it matters: it must not be the figure the gold rate is applied to
• Net gold weight | the gold alone | why it matters: the only correct basis for both the gold and the per gram making calculation
• Purity | written as 916, 750 or 585 | why it matters: it fixes the rate applied, the resale value and the loan value
• HUID | six characters, per hallmarked item | why it matters: the only way to verify the piece in the BIS CARE app
• Gold rate applied | per gram, on that date | why it matters: without it the calculation cannot be reproduced
• Making charges | rupees per gram, stated explicitly | why it matters: a lump sum conceals the figure you need for comparison
• Wastage | as its own line if charged | why it matters: it can quietly exceed the making charge itself
• Stone weight and value | itemised where applicable | why it matters: stones are credited at little or nothing on exit
• GST | rate applied and the value it was applied to | why it matters: it distinguishes composite billing from job work billing
• Hallmarking charge | per piece | why it matters: it should be a small fixed amount, not a percentage
• Buyback and exchange terms | in writing | why it matters: the line most often omitted and the one that decides what you recover

On relationship based buying

A great deal of buying in Bakerganj and Hathwa Market runs on long family relationships, sitting down with a jeweller who has served the same household across generations. That is a genuine strength and it is not a substitute for a proper GST invoice.

Asking for full itemisation is not a statement of distrust and costs an honest jeweller nothing. It matters most precisely in the households where gold is the only savings, because those are the households that will one day need to prove what they own and what it cost.

Keep the invoice somewhere dry and separate from the jewellery.

Purity is not a quality ranking. Each grade exists because it suits a different job, and choosing by the highest number is the most common and most expensive mistake a first time buyer makes.

The four grades compared

• 24 karat | stamped 999 | 99.9 percent gold | durability very low | coins and bars | not suitable for wear | highest resale and pledge value per gram
• 22 karat | stamped 916 | 91.6 percent gold | durability moderate | traditional Bihari bridal work and most jewellery sold here | strong resale value
• 18 karat | stamped 750 | 75 percent gold | durability high | diamond and gemstone settings, contemporary daily wear | moderate resale value
• 14 karat | stamped 585 | 58.5 percent gold | durability highest | lightweight designs at a lower price point | lowest resale value per gram

A caution about lower karat as a budget answer

As prices have risen, 14 karat pieces have grown as a way of buying something substantial looking for less. That is a legitimate choice for jewellery meant to be worn, and it is a poor choice for jewellery meant to hold value.

A 14 karat piece contains 58.5 percent gold against 91.6 percent in a 916 piece of the same weight, so it pledges for substantially less and returns substantially less. For a household where the jewellery is also the emergency reserve, that difference matters more than the lower purchase price suggests.

If the objective is value, a smaller 916 piece or a coin serves better than a larger 14 karat one at the same price.

The short version. If gold content is the point, buy 22 karat or a coin. If the stone is the point, buy 18 karat. If appearance for a given budget is the point, 14 karat is honest about what it is, provided you know it will not do the savings job.

Verification takes under a minute and belongs before payment, not after.

Step one. Find the marks on the piece. They are small, usually on the inner band of a ring, the clasp of a chain or the reverse of a pendant. You are looking for the BIS logo, a three digit purity grade of 916, 750 or 585, and a six character alphanumeric HUID.

Step two. Download the BIS CARE app, published by the Bureau of Indian Standards.

Step three. Enter the HUID. The app returns the registered jeweller, the assaying centre, the purity and the item type. Check each field against the piece in your hand and against the invoice.

Step four. If the app returns nothing, or details that do not match, do not complete the purchase.

Why this is worth insisting on here

Hallmarking coverage across Bihar has expanded considerably, with assaying and hallmarking centres now operating across Patna. But older stock and pieces bought before the mandatory regime still circulate widely, particularly through exchange.

If a shop offers an unhallmarked piece at a lower price, understand what is being traded away. You lose the ability to verify purity, you lose recourse if it turns out lower than claimed, and you will be offered less when you sell or pledge. For a household whose gold is its reserve, that is a poor bargain at any discount.

Testing gold you already own

BIS recognised assaying centres in Patna, with clusters around Boring Road, Patliputra Colony and Bakerganj, carry out XRF testing for a nominal fee. It is non destructive and returns a purity reading in minutes.

Do this before selling, exchanging or pledging inherited pieces. Arriving with your own measured figure is the single most effective thing a seller can do, and the fee is small against the difference it makes.

BIS recognised assaying and hallmarking centres operate across Patna, with clusters around Boring Road, Patliputra Colony and the Bakerganj trade.

The authoritative list of recognised centres, with addresses and registration numbers, is published by the Bureau of Indian Standards and revised as registrations are granted and withdrawn. Verify against the BIS list rather than any third party directory, including this page.

What a hallmarking centre actually does

It assays the metal to establish actual purity, applies the BIS mark and purity grade, and assigns the HUID linking the piece to a record. The centre is independent of the jeweller who sends the piece, and that independence is the entire basis of the system's credibility.

That independence is worth more, not less, in a market built on long family relationships. Trust between a household and its jeweller is real and valuable, and it is a different thing from an outside measurement. The best houses understand that distinction better than anyone.

Using a centre yourself, which few people do

You do not need a jeweller to take gold to an assaying centre. Walking in with inherited pieces and paying the nominal fee for an XRF reading is entirely normal, and it is the single most useful thing you can do before selling or pledging anything.

Households across Bihar hold a great deal of jewellery bought before hallmarking became mandatory, where the actual purity has never been measured. Where that gold is also the family's financial reserve, knowing what it actually is rather than what it was described as is worth the fee many times over.

KDM refers to cadmium soldered gold. Cadmium was used historically as a soldering alloy because it melts at a low temperature and produces a clean joint, allowing a high purity claim for the finished piece.

Cadmium is toxic. Prolonged exposure is associated with serious kidney and respiratory harm, and the burden fell heaviest on the karigars who worked with it daily. BIS no longer certifies KDM jewellery and it has been progressively replaced by safer solder alloys.

Current practice is hallmarked 916 gold with cadmium free solder. If a seller describes new stock as KDM, it is either old inventory or outside the hallmarking system, and neither is a reason to buy.

Why traditional Bihari pieces are affected

The traditional bridal forms made here, the hansuli collar, the bajuband armband and the heavier necklaces, involve substantial joining. The more solder a piece contains relative to its gold, the further its measured purity can fall below the claim.

Inherited KDM pieces can be sold, exchanged or pledged normally. Have them assayed first, because KDM purity claims of 92 percent and above were frequently optimistic on jointed work.

On a family holding that represents most of a household's savings, discovering a shortfall at the counter when money is urgently needed is the worst possible moment to find out. Check in advance, while there is no pressure.

Stone set pieces carry the least transparent pricing in any jewellery market, and in a market where gold doubles as savings the consequences are sharper. Four things to establish.

Gross weight versus net gold weight

If the gold rate is applied to total weight including stones, you are paying gold prices for gemstone weight. Net gold weight must be stated separately and used for both the gold value and the per gram making calculation.

This matters twice over in Patna, because the same net figure determines what a lender will advance against the piece. A stone set necklace that weighs impressively will pledge for far less than its weight suggests.

What the stones actually are

Ask directly whether each stone is natural, treated, synthetic or imitation, and get the answer in writing. These four categories can look identical in a showroom and differ by orders of magnitude in price. None is dishonest in itself. Selling one as another is.

Independent certification

For any significant stone, insist on a report from a laboratory independent of the seller rather than an in house one. Diamond value depends on cut, colour, clarity and carat weight, and small grade differences produce large price differences.

The buyback point, stated plainly

Most jewellers buy back gold content at prevailing rates and assign little or nothing to stones. Lenders do the same. So a stone set piece bought as a household's savings is partly not savings at all, and nobody will tell you that at the moment of purchase.

If a piece is being bought to be worn, that is fine. If it is being bought because the family needs something it can fall back on, plain gold does that job and a stone set piece does it partially.

Lab grown versus mined diamonds

Lab grown diamonds are chemically, physically and optically identical to mined diamonds and are graded on the same scale by the same laboratories. They are not simulants such as cubic zirconia or moissanite, which are entirely different materials. The distinction belongs on the certificate and the invoice. Lucira's lab grown diamonds carry IGI or SGL certification.

Patna's jewellery trade is concentrated in a few well defined areas, and the difference between them is mainly the making charge.

Bakerganj. The traditional hub and the heart of the trade, densely packed with generational goldsmiths and wholesale dealers around Thakurbari Road, Bari Path and the surrounding complexes. Making charges here are typically the keenest in the city, and several shops can be compared in a short walk.

Hathwa Market. Long established jewellers carrying traditional Bihari designs, with in house karigars who know the forms. This is where families go for a wedding set made the way it has been made for decades. Not air conditioned, not contemporary, and strong on exactly what it does.

Maurya Lok Complex and SP Verma Road. Central commercial areas with a mix of established local jewellers and larger shops.

Boring Road, Patliputra Colony and Kankarbagh. The modern retail belts, carrying national chains and larger showrooms with fixed pricing, certification as standard and higher making charges.

Patna City and the old quarter. Smaller neighbourhood jewellers serving their own catchments.

Online. Certified pieces with published pricing, delivery and return windows. Lucira has no physical store in Patna or Bihar, so buying from us here means ordering online with certified pieces and a 15 day money back window. Our nearest experience centres are in Delhi NCR.

The advice specific to this city

Compare Bakerganj against a Boring Road showroom on the same specification before deciding. The metal rate will be identical. The making charge will not, and on a wedding set the difference runs to a substantial sum.

Go on a weekday morning. Bakerganj is heavily congested before Chhath and Dhanteras, and a crowded counter is not where anyone checks a HUID carefully.

Patna's gold market is shaped by one fact above all others: this is the capital of the state with the lowest per capita income in India. Everything about how the market behaves follows from that.

A market that trades down rather than out

When gold rises sharply, a wealthy market buys a lighter gold piece. This market moves to silver. That substitution is a defining feature here and it shows up most clearly around Chhath, when the ceremonial items a household needs, the soop, the diya, the kalash, can be bought in silver when gold is out of reach.

That is why a Patna jeweller's shop carries a depth of silver that a Mumbai or Bengaluru showroom does not, and why the silver rate belongs on this page rather than in a footnote.

The traditional forms

Bihari bridal jewellery has its own vocabulary. The sitahari worn on the forehead, the hansuli, a thick collar necklace sitting close to the throat, and the bajuband worn on the upper arm are forms families have bought for generations, and Hathwa Market jewellers still make them with in house karigars who know the designs without a drawing.

That continuity is genuine and it is worth valuing. It is also worth understanding that these are heavy pieces, and heavy pieces at a per gram making charge cost a great deal in labour.

Bakerganj and the shape of the trade

Bakerganj has been the centre of the gold and silver trade in Patna for decades, dense with generational goldsmiths and wholesale dealers. Around it sit Hathwa Market and the central commercial roads, and beyond them the modern showroom belts in Boring Road, Patliputra Colony and Kankarbagh.

The Bihar Bullion Association distributes the daily rate the trade works from, so the metal price is uniform and the making charge is the only variable. In a low income market that single number matters more than anywhere else on this site.

Practical guidance for a first visit

Go to Bakerganj on a weekday morning. Check the published rate before you leave. Ask for the making charge in rupees per gram and ask separately about wastage. Verify the HUID on every piece. Take a full GST invoice with each item listed. And compare at least one Bakerganj quote against one showroom quote before deciding.

The answer depends on what you are buying and how much of the transaction you can verify yourself.

Where the local market wins

Traditional Bihari bridal work. The sitahari, hansuli and bajuband are made here by karigars who know the forms, and a family choosing a wedding set wants to see it, handle it and negotiate the making charge in person.

Plain gold from Bakerganj, where the making charges are genuinely competitive and an online seller carrying national overheads has little room to beat them.

And the relationship itself, which in this market carries real value. A jeweller who has served a family across generations will accept old gold in exchange, will work with a household's budget, and is findable if something goes wrong.

Where online is stronger

Certified diamond jewellery, where published stone grades and independent certification remove the hardest judgement from the transaction. Lighter contemporary pieces in 18 and 14 karat. And return windows, which give a reversal option a Bakerganj purchase does not.

What to check before buying online

BIS hallmarking with HUID on every gold item. Independent certification for every diamond. A stated return period and who pays return shipping. Published buyback and exchange terms. Insured delivery. And a named entity with a verifiable address behind the website.

One honest caution. Buying online means the seller is not somewhere you can walk to. Where a purchase represents a large share of a household's savings, that distance is a real consideration and a local jeweller you can find again has a value that does not appear in the price.

The rate is uniform across the city, so almost every avoidable cost sits in the making charge or in something missing from the invoice.

Not comparing Bakerganj against a showroom. This is the single biggest saving available and it takes one morning. The gold rate will be identical at both.

A making charge quoted as a lump sum. Ask for the rupees per gram figure explicitly. Patna's per gram convention makes comparison easy, but only if you have the number.

Assuming a heavy piece gets a better rate. A per gram charge scales strictly with weight. On a heavy hansuli or a full bridal set, the labour cost is proportional and there is no volume discount unless you ask for one.

Wastage charged on top without being mentioned. Ask whether it applies and get it as a separate line.

Buying stone set pieces as savings. Stones are credited at nothing when you sell or pledge. If the purchase is meant to be a reserve, plain gold serves it and a stone set piece does not.

Accepting an unhallmarked piece for a discount. You lose verification, recourse, resale value and loan value, all for a small saving.

Borrowing at high cost to fund a wedding purchase. This is the most serious one on the list. Social expectation around wedding gold is real, and debt taken at informal rates to meet it has ruined households. Buy the weight you can afford.

Festive pressure. The Chhath and Dhanteras run is the busiest stretch of the Patna year, and a crowded counter is not where anyone reads an invoice carefully.

This section matters more here than the buying sections, because in a low income market gold is more often turned back into money than in a wealthy one. Three routes, and the order you consider them in matters.

Consider pledging before selling

A gold loan lets you raise money and keep the jewellery, and it can be repaid. A sale cannot be reversed, and gold sold in a difficult year is rarely rebought in a better one.

That is not an argument for borrowing casually, and section 37 sets out where gold loans go wrong. It is an argument for treating a sale as the last step rather than the first, particularly on pieces the family would want back.

Exchange, where you are buying something anyway

Most Patna jewellers accept old gold against a new purchase at prevailing rates, and Hathwa Market and Bakerganj shops do this routinely. Exchange generally gives better value than outright sale because it removes the refining step from the jeweller's calculation.

Outright sale

Get the pieces assayed at a BIS recognised centre first, so you know actual purity before anyone quotes you. Gather invoices where they exist. Check today's rate. Then take quotes from more than one buyer, which in Bakerganj means walking a short distance.

Expect a deduction below the prevailing rate. Patna is a retail rather than a bullion market, so a jeweller buying your gold sends it onward to be refined, and that longer chain shows up as a wider deduction than in a trading city.

What you will not recover

The making charge, on any route. And on stone set pieces, the stones. You are credited for metal.

Lucira's Old Gold Exchange credits 105 percent of prevailing value against a new purchase, though valuation happens at an experience centre and our nearest are in Delhi NCR. Contact us to arrange it rather than sending anything unannounced.

Bihar's calendar is dominated by one festival that has no equivalent anywhere else in India, and the buying year is built around it.

The Patna gold buying year

• January or February | Saraswati Puja at Vasant Panchami | demand moderate | strong for silver idols and ceremonial items
• March or April | Chaiti Chhath | demand moderate | the spring observance of Chhath, smaller than the autumn one
• April to May | Akshaya Tritiya | demand peak | the highest single day volume of the Indian year
• May to August | summer and monsoon | demand low | the quietest stretch of the Patna year
• September or October | Durga Puja | demand high | a major festive period across eastern India
• October or November | Dhanteras and Diwali | demand peak | the biggest volume days for coins and utensils
• October or November | Chhath Puja | demand very high | Bihar's defining festival, four days, and the most distinctly Bihari buying event of the year
• November to February | Lagna, the wedding season | demand very high | the sustained peak, and the largest purchases of the year

What Chhath actually drives

Chhath is a four day observance centred on worship of the sun and the river, and it requires specific ceremonial items. Silver soops, the winnowing fans used in the ritual, along with silver diyas and kalash, are bought for it in a way that happens nowhere else in India.

That is why the Patna silver market peaks around Chhath rather than around a purely commercial occasion, and why a jeweller here stocks ceremonial silver in depth.

The homecoming effect

Migrant workers return to Bihar for Chhath in enormous numbers, and many bring accumulated earnings with them. That produces a buying surge driven by the arrival of money rather than by the festival alone, and it makes the weeks around Chhath the least negotiable of the entire year.

The practical implication

Because Dhanteras, Diwali and Chhath fall within weeks of each other and the wedding season follows immediately, Patna has an extremely compressed peak running from roughly October to February.

If your purchase is discretionary, buy between May and August. The city is quiet, making charges are most negotiable, and a Bakerganj jeweller has time to talk. If it is tied to Chhath or a wedding, plan the purchase months ahead rather than in the fortnight before.

Bank lockers. The standard option, and worth pursuing even where a household holds a modest quantity. Annual rental varies by locker size and branch. Bank liability for locker contents is limited by regulation and generally capped at a multiple of the annual rent rather than the value of what is inside, so read the agreement rather than assuming full cover.

Locker availability can be constrained at busy branches, and it is worth asking at more than one rather than concluding none is available.

Home safes. A safe should be bolted into structure rather than free standing, since portability is the main vulnerability. Home insurance frequently caps jewellery cover at a low figure unless individual items are separately declared and valued.

Where a household has no locker

A great many families across Bihar keep gold at home because a locker is inconvenient, costly relative to the holding, or simply not the habit. That is a real situation rather than a hypothetical, and the honest advice is practical rather than idealised.

Keep the written inventory and the invoices somewhere separate from the jewellery itself, so that a single theft does not take both the gold and the evidence of what it was. Photograph each piece. Keep digital copies of documents where possible. And avoid a widely known single hiding place.

The Gangetic climate

The gold is unaffected by humidity. Your paperwork is not. Invoices stored loose will degrade through a Gangetic plain monsoon, and a damaged invoice weakens your position at sale, at pledge and on any insurance claim. Store documents in sealed sleeves and check them after each monsoon.

On silver, which many households here hold in quantity, humidity does cause tarnish. Store ceremonial silver dry and wrapped, and clean it gently rather than aggressively.

If gold is pledged, keep the pledge receipt with your inventory and confirm how the lender stores and insures it.

Monthly instalment schemes are offered by most Patna jewellers and are widely used, because they match how a great many households here can actually save: small amounts, regularly, toward a known occasion.

The common structure. You pay a fixed amount monthly for a defined term, most often eleven months. At maturity the jeweller adds a bonus, commonly equal to one instalment, redeemable against jewellery.

The genuine benefits. Enforced saving, which is the main one. Rupee cost averaging across the term. A bonus that effectively discounts the purchase. Often a making charge concession at redemption.

The check that matters most here

Whether the scheme is registered with the Registrar of Companies. Deposit taking schemes are required to be, and an unregistered scheme means your money is an unsecured claim on a private business with no protection behind it.

This matters more in a market with lower formal financial access, because informal collection schemes have historically caused real losses to households that could least afford them. Ask for the registration and do not accept a verbal assurance.

What else to establish before enrolling

Whether the bonus is a fixed instalment or a percentage. Whether redemption is restricted to a limited catalogue. What happens if you miss an instalment, which for a household with irregular income is a live risk rather than a formality. Whether cash redemption is possible. And what making charge applies at redemption.

That last point decides the value. A bonus of one instalment in eleven is worth little if the redemption making charge is at the top of the Patna range, and you have given up the ability to compare shops for eleven months to get it.

A recurring deposit at a bank does the enforced saving job with none of those risks, though it does not accumulate gold. For a household whose goal is a wedding purchase, running both is often better than choosing one.

Lucira's Vault of Dreams follows a 9 plus 1 structure: pay ten monthly instalments and receive eleven months of value at redemption, on published terms rather than terms negotiated case by case.

Eight formats are available to a Patna buyer, and this page adds a ninth that belongs here and nowhere else. Purpose should decide the format.

The formats compared

• Plain gold jewellery | minimum is piece price | held physically | liquidity moderate | cost is making, 170 to 420 rupees per gram | best for wearing, gifting and pledging
• Traditional Bihari bridal work | piece price | held physically | liquidity moderate | heavy pieces at a per gram charge, so labour cost is substantial | best for wearing and keeping
• Stone set jewellery | piece price | held physically | liquidity lower | stones credited at nothing on sale or pledge | best for wearing only
• Gold coins | from half a gram | held physically | liquidity high | cost 2 to 8 percent premium | best for accumulation and pledging
• Silver, ceremonial and coin | low entry cost | held physically | liquidity moderate | the affordable substitute when gold is out of reach | best for Chhath and festive requirements
• Bars | from five grams | held physically | liquidity high | lowest premium | best for bulk holding
• Digital gold | from very small amounts | vaulted by provider | liquidity high | cost is the spread | best for small regular buying where a smartphone and account exist
• Gold ETF | one unit | held in demat | liquidity high in market hours | cannot be pledged same day | requires a demat account
• Sovereign gold bond | one gram | demat or certificate | liquidity low until maturity | no making cost, pays interest | best for a long untouched hold

Silver earns its row on this page

It is listed because in this market it is a genuine alternative rather than a lesser metal. It meets the ceremonial requirements Chhath and the festive calendar impose, it is affordable when gold is not, and it pledges and sells like gold does.

Its weakness is volatility, which is higher than gold's, and a wider dealer spread. Silver is a reasonable answer to a ceremonial need and a poorer one to a long term savings need.

The decision rule

If the gold will be worn or pledged, buy plain 916 and keep the per gram making charge low. If the objective is a reserve, coins carry the lowest premium and pledge cleanly. If a ceremonial requirement must be met and gold is out of reach this year, silver meets it honestly.

Gold is simultaneously a commodity, a currency substitute and a cultural asset. The investment case rests on four properties.

It is nobody's liability. A bond depends on an issuer staying solvent. A deposit depends on a bank. Physically held gold depends on no one.

It behaves differently from equities, with low and sometimes negative correlation during market stress.

It preserves purchasing power over very long horizons, though it does not compound and generates no income.

And it is liquid and pledgeable almost anywhere, including in places where other financial products are not available.

That last property is the whole story here

Most discussion of gold treats it as one allocation among many, held by someone who also owns equities, deposits and insurance. For a large number of Bihar households that framing does not describe the situation at all.

Where income is irregular and often informal, where formal credit is hard to obtain without documentation, and where insurance and pension provision are limited, gold does several jobs at once. It is the savings, the emergency fund, the collateral and the provision for old age, in a single object that a family can hold and understand.

That is not financial naivety. It is a reasonable response to a set of constraints, and it has worked for generations.

What is genuinely worth adding

Bank account access across Bihar has expanded substantially in recent years, and a basic savings account or a recurring deposit is now within reach of far more households than a decade ago.

That does not replace gold and should not. It adds something gold cannot do: a portion of savings that does not fluctuate with a metal price, that earns a small return, and that can be drawn on without visiting a jeweller. Holding both is stronger than holding either.

Safe is doing a lot of work in that question, and separating the two meanings answers it.

If safe means low risk of permanent loss, gold scores well. It cannot default, cannot be diluted by an issuer, and has never gone to zero in any currency.

If safe means low volatility, gold scores poorly. Double digit annual swings are normal, drawdowns of 20 percent or more have happened repeatedly, and the metal has spent multi year stretches below a previous peak.

Why the volatility matters more here

For an investor holding gold as ten percent of a portfolio, a 20 percent fall is an inconvenience absorbed by everything else. For a household whose gold is the entire safety net, the same fall means the emergency fund shrank by a fifth at a moment nobody chose.

The risk is compounded if the gold is pledged, because a falling price can trigger a demand for part repayment precisely when a household is least able to meet it.

That is an argument for holding some savings in a form that does not move, not an argument against gold. Even a small bank deposit alongside the jewellery does a job the jewellery cannot.

The other risks

Purity risk, which hallmarking largely solves and which remains real on older undocumented pieces. Theft and loss, which weigh more heavily where a household has no locker. And the making charge drag, which on heavy traditional work at a per gram charge is substantial.

The general conclusion holds: gold is a safe holding and an unreliable trade, and it is safest when it is not the only thing a family has.

For most Bihar households this comparison is theoretical, because property requires a sum that gold does not. It is worth setting out anyway, because the differences explain why gold occupies the place it does.

Gold and Patna property side by side

• Entry size | gold from one gram | property requires a large committed sum plus stamp duty, registration and brokerage
• Accessibility | anyone can buy a gram of gold this week | property requires documentation, credit and a scale of saving most households cannot reach
• Liquidity | gold converts to cash in a day | a property sale runs to months and depends on one buyer
• Speed as collateral | gold pledges the same day with minimal documentation | a property backed loan requires title, valuation and weeks
• Income | gold produces none | property can be let, with genuine rental demand in a growing state capital
• Divisibility | gold can be sold five grams at a time | a house cannot be sold in parts, which matters when heirs divide it
• Title risk | gold carries none once hallmarked and invoiced | land title disputes are common and slow to resolve
• Leverage | gold is normally bought outright | property is usually bought with a loan

The rows that explain gold's position

Accessibility and speed as collateral. Gold is the only substantial asset a household on an irregular income can begin acquiring immediately, in whatever quantity this month allows, and can borrow against tomorrow without paperwork it does not have.

Title risk deserves a specific mention. Land disputes are a well known feature of rural Bihar, and a family holding land it cannot cleanly prove ownership of holds something considerably less useful than the same value in gold.

Where a household can access property, ordinary diligence applies and title verification is not optional. Where it cannot, gold is not a second best. It is the asset that actually fits.

Gold is best understood next to the assets it sits alongside, and in this market the silver comparison matters as much as the equity one.

Four assets compared

• Gold | no income | volatility moderate | inflation protection strong | crisis behaviour typically rises | role is reserve and collateral
• Equity | dividends and reinvested earnings | volatility high | inflation protection moderate over long periods | crisis behaviour falls hard | role is long term growth
• Debt | fixed interest | volatility low | inflation protection weak | crisis behaviour generally stable | role is stability and accessibility
• Silver | no income | volatility very high | inflation protection moderate | industrial demand pulls both ways | role is affordable metal and ceremonial requirement

Silver, honestly assessed

Silver serves a real purpose in Patna and it is not a smaller version of gold. Roughly half its demand is industrial, which makes it considerably more volatile, and the dealer spread on buying and selling is wider proportionally.

So silver is a good answer to a ceremonial requirement in an expensive year, and a weaker answer to the question of where a household should hold its long term reserve. A family that has substituted silver for gold at Chhath has made a sensible decision. A family holding its entire savings in silver has taken on more volatility than it probably intended.

The gap that is not more metal

For most Patna households the practical missing piece is not a different metal but any exposure at all to something that compounds and does not fluctuate. A recurring deposit is the accessible version of that, and it requires no demat account, no market knowledge and no minimum wealth.

That is an uncomfortable recommendation on a gold rate page, and it is the honest one.

All the gold ever mined amounts to a surprisingly small quantity. Estimates from the World Gold Council place it at somewhat over two hundred thousand tonnes, a volume that would fit inside a cube a little over twenty metres on each side.

Roughly half of that exists as jewellery. The remainder splits between private investment holdings in bars and coins, official reserves held by central banks and the International Monetary Fund, and industrial use.

Annual mine production adds only a small percentage to the existing stock each year, and that rate has been broadly flat despite higher prices. This is the structural reason gold holds value: the quantity in existence cannot be expanded quickly by decision, unlike a currency.

A note on how India's household gold gets described

Indian households collectively hold one of the largest private gold stocks in the world, and that figure is often cited as though it were a national resource waiting to be put to use.

It is worth being clear about what it actually is. That stock is jewellery in individual homes, acquired household by household, and in a state like Bihar much of it is not idle wealth at all but the entire savings of families with no other financial cushion.

Proposals to mobilise India's household gold tend to be written from the perspective of the surplus holdings. For a family in Patna whose jewellery is the emergency fund, the pension and the collateral all at once, there is nothing surplus about it, and any scheme asking them to give up access is asking a great deal more than it appears to.

Gold's long run return in rupee terms has been respectable, but the shape of it is what matters and it is rarely explained.

The returns are lumpy rather than steady. Long flat periods are followed by short sharp rallies, and most of the multi decade gain is concentrated in a small number of years. Entry point therefore matters a great deal.

Part of the Indian return is currency. When the rupee weakens against the dollar, the rupee gold price rises even if international gold is unchanged, so a headline rupee return overstates what the metal itself did.

Costs, and why they bite harder on small purchases

A coin bought at a small premium tracks the metal closely. A chain bought at 250 rupees per gram making starts a couple of percent behind. A heavy traditional set at 400 rupees per gram starts further behind, and none of that labour comes back on sale.

There is a compounding problem specific to buying in small quantities, which is how a great many households here accumulate. Making charges per gram do not fall with size, and small pieces frequently carry the higher end of the range. A family buying two grams at a time over many years pays substantially more in cumulative labour than one buying the same total weight in fewer, larger purchases.

Where small regular buying is the only way saving happens, that cost is worth paying. Where a household could hold the money for a few months and buy once, doing so is materially cheaper.

The measure that matters more

For a household using gold as a reserve rather than an investment, the return is not really the question. What matters is that the value held up, that it was there when needed, and that it could be turned into money quickly. On those terms gold has done its job reliably for generations, and no return calculation captures it.

The sober conclusion is that gold has preserved purchasing power reliably and generated wealth unreliably.

Three routes to owning gold as an asset rather than an ornament, with genuinely different characteristics and genuinely different accessibility.

Physical, ETF and sovereign gold bond compared

• Physical gold | held by you | entry cost is making charge or coin premium | storage cost is locker or risk at home | liquidity high | earns nothing | can be worn, gifted and pledged same day
• Gold ETF | held in demat | entry cost is brokerage | ongoing cost is the expense ratio | liquidity high in market hours | earns nothing | requires a demat account and cannot be pledged quickly
• Sovereign gold bond | demat or certificate | no entry premium | no storage cost | liquidity low before maturity | pays fixed interest | requires a bank or demat relationship and issuance windows

Physical gold has no counterparty and no platform dependency. It is the only format that satisfies the role gold plays at a wedding, and the only one that can be pledged tomorrow morning.

Gold ETFs track the metal closely and remove making charges and storage entirely. Sovereign gold bonds pay interest on top of tracking the price, with historically favourable tax treatment on redemption at maturity.

The access barrier, which is the real issue

Both paper formats require a demat account, a bank relationship and comfort with financial paperwork. For a substantial share of Bihar households those are genuine obstacles rather than minor inconveniences, and it is easy for a financial page to recommend bonds without noticing that.

There is also a liquidity point that matters more than the cost advantage. A sovereign gold bond cannot be turned into money quickly, and a household that may need cash at short notice needs an asset it can actually reach. Physical gold does that. A bond does not.

So the honest guidance is this. If you have the account and you are confident the money will not be needed for years, bonds are the more efficient route. If either condition fails, physical gold is not a mistake, it is the format that fits your situation, and coins are the efficient version of it.

Coins are the most efficient way for a Patna household to hold gold as savings, and this section deserves more attention than it usually gets on a jewellery page.

What to buy. 999 or 999.9 purity, from a recognised mint or an established jeweller, tamper evident sealed with an assay certificate. Denominations run from half a gram and one gram upward, which makes them accessible at almost any budget.

Smaller coins carry a higher premium per gram, so where a household can accumulate to a larger denomination before buying, it is more efficient. A five gram coin costs less in premium than five one gram coins.

Where to buy. Established houses in Bakerganj sit closest to the trade. Showrooms in Boring Road and Kankarbagh charge a little more and offer clearer buyback terms.

What to check. That the coin is sealed and the seal intact, because breaking it reduces resale value. That the invoice states purity, weight and mint. And that the seller will buy it back, on what basis.

The bank caution. Several banks sell gold coins and most will not buy them back. If you buy from a bank you will need a jeweller to exit, usually at a lower price than a jeweller would pay on a coin they sold themselves.

Why this matters in Patna specifically

Making charges in this market run from 170 to 420 rupees per gram on jewellery. A coin carries a premium of a few percent and nothing more. Over years of small regular saving, the difference between accumulating in coins and accumulating in light chains is a substantial sum of money that simply stays with the household rather than being paid away in labour.

Coins also pledge more cleanly than jewellery, because purity is certified and there is no making charge to argue about.

The counterargument is real. Jewellery is worn and given, and a coin is not. The answer is not to abandon jewellery but to stop treating it as the savings. Buy the pieces the family will use, and hold the reserve in coins.

Gold futures are exchange traded contracts to buy or sell a fixed quantity of gold at a set price on a future date. In India they trade on MCX, and MCX prices are one of the two benchmarks the Bihar trade uses to set the daily rate.

Who actually uses them. Jewellers and bullion dealers hedge inventory. Traders take a leveraged view. Retail savers have no reason at all to touch them.

Why they are unsuitable. Futures trade on margin, so a small adverse move can require additional funds at short notice and can wipe out the position entirely. Contracts expire, so a long term view requires rolling positions and paying for it. None of this resembles buying a coin and keeping it.

The warning this page most needs to carry

Schemes promising guaranteed or monthly returns from gold and commodity trading are marketed persistently in smaller cities and towns across Bihar, frequently through local agents and personal networks. They are aimed at exactly the households that hold gold, understand its value, and have limited access to independent financial advice.

Nobody who could reliably deliver those returns would need to raise money from a household in Patna through an agent. If someone offers you managed gold trading, a doubling scheme, or a fixed monthly return on a gold deposit, the answer is no.

Check whether the entity is registered with the relevant regulator before parting with anything, and be particularly cautious where the person offering it is known to you socially. That familiarity is the mechanism, not a reassurance.

The one useful thing a non trader can take from the futures market is information. MCX prices are public and give a live read on where the domestic market is pricing gold, which is a helpful sanity check against any rate quoted to you.

This section is longer than its equivalent on other city pages, because in a market where gold is the household reserve, the loan against it is the most consequential financial product most families will use.

Gold loan and personal loan compared

• Security | gold loan is secured against pledged jewellery | personal loan is unsecured
• Interest rate | gold loan is materially cheaper | personal loan is dearer
• Approval basis | gold loan depends mainly on assessed purity and weight | personal loan depends on income proof and credit score
• Credit history | gold loan needs little or none | personal loan requires a documented record most informal earners do not have
• Speed | gold loan is often disbursed the same day | personal loan takes longer
• Risk on default | gold loan means losing the pledged jewellery | personal loan means credit damage and recovery action
• Price risk | gold loan can attract a margin call if gold falls sharply | personal loan has none

Use a regulated lender

This is the most important sentence in the section. Banks and regulated non banking finance companies operate under rules on interest, valuation, storage, insurance and what happens if you cannot repay. An unregulated local lender operates under none of them.

The convenience of borrowing from someone nearby who asks no questions is real, and so is the cost. Rates from informal lenders can be multiples of a bank's, and the recovery process has no rules you can point to. Where a bank or a registered NBFC is available, use it.

Where families lose the jewellery

Borrowing at the maximum loan to value. The cap protects both sides, and borrowing right up to it means any fall in the gold price triggers a demand for repayment or more security at the worst possible time. Leave headroom.

Rolling rather than repaying. A loan taken to bridge a defined gap and repaid is cheap credit used well. The same loan renewed year after year becomes an expensive way of having sold the jewellery slowly, without ever having decided to.

Bullet repayment surprises. Many gold loans accrue interest and fall due as a single sum at the end. That looks manageable month to month and arrives as a large payment. Understand the structure before signing.

Pledging jewellery that belongs to someone else in the family. Wedding jewellery frequently belongs, in practice or in law, to the woman who received it. Pledging it should be an explicit family decision, not an assumption.

Before you sign

Have the pieces independently assayed so you know the purity the valuation should reflect. Compare at least two regulated lenders. Check the repayment structure, the processing fee, any prepayment charge, and how the lender stores and insures your jewellery. And keep the pledge receipt safe, because it is the document that gets your gold back.

A small but genuine share of annual gold demand comes from industry rather than jewellery or investment.

Electronics is the largest industrial use. Gold conducts electricity well and, unlike copper or silver, does not corrode or tarnish, which makes it the material of choice for connectors, bonding wires and contacts. Medicine and dentistry use it for biocompatibility, and aerospace for reliable contacts and reflective coatings.

Bihar's relationship with gold is entirely domestic

Worth being straightforward. Bihar has limited heavy manufacturing, and gold here is not an industrial input in any meaningful quantity. It is bought, worn, saved, pledged and passed on.

The craft that does exist is the work of karigars attached to individual shops, making traditional Bihari forms by hand for local customers. That is a real skill and a real local economy, and it is small scale by comparison with a manufacturing city like Coimbatore or Rajkot.

Silver, which does have an industrial dimension

Since silver matters here, it is worth noting that roughly half of global silver demand is industrial, in solar panels, electronics and electrical contacts. That is why silver is more volatile than gold: it responds to industrial cycles as well as to investment demand.

For a Patna household buying silver for Chhath, that is background rather than a concern. For one holding silver as savings, it is the reason the price moves more sharply than gold in both directions.

One implication for the wider market. A growing volume of gold is recovered from electronic waste, which now forms a meaningful part of recycled supply.

Tax on gold arises at three points: when you buy it, when you sell it, and in certain cases when you receive it as a gift.

At purchase. GST applies to gold jewellery at 3 percent, in most retail invoices on the combined value of gold and making as a composite supply. Where making is billed separately as job work, 5 percent can apply to that line. TCS may also apply on high value cash purchases above the prescribed threshold. Bihar levies no additional state tax on gold beyond GST.

At sale

Any gain is taxed as capital gains. The rate and the holding period separating short term from long term have been revised in recent Union Budgets, and treatment now differs between physical gold, gold funds and sovereign gold bonds.

In practice a household selling a modest quantity of long held jewellery to meet an expense is unlikely to face a significant liability, particularly where the gold was inherited and held for many years. But the position depends on the numbers and on total income, and it is worth asking rather than assuming either way.

On gifts

Gold received from specified close relatives is generally exempt. Gold received from others above a prescribed value can be taxable as income from other sources. Gifts received on the occasion of the recipient's marriage are generally exempt, which matters given the scale of wedding gifting here.

On holding

India has no wealth tax on gold at present and no legal limit on how much a household may own, though tax authorities may ask you to explain the source of holdings inconsistent with declared income.

For households in the informal economy, where income itself is less documented, keeping whatever records exist matters more rather than less. Purchase invoices, gift records and a written inventory are the practical protection.

Important. Tax rules on gold have changed more than once in recent Finance Acts. Treat this as general orientation rather than advice and confirm the current position before you transact.

The calculation itself is simple. The complications are documentary, and in a market where a great deal of gold is inherited without paperwork, they are the whole difficulty.

Start with the sale consideration, meaning what you actually received. Subtract the cost of acquisition, meaning what you originally paid, including making charges and GST where they formed part of the cost. Subtract any expenditure incurred wholly in connection with the sale. What remains is the capital gain.

Whether that gain is short term or long term depends on the holding period, and the threshold has been revised in recent Budgets. The rate differs between the two categories and has also changed, including the treatment of indexation.

Inherited gold, which is the usual case here

Inheritance itself is not a taxable transfer. When you sell, the cost of acquisition is generally taken as the cost to the previous owner, and the holding period generally includes theirs. Where a piece has been in the family for decades, that long holding period usually works in the seller's favour.

For very old holdings there are specific rules for establishing a cost where no record exists. Households across Bihar frequently hold jewellery going back generations with nothing on paper, so this is worth resolving with a professional rather than guessing.

The practical step worth taking now

Write down what the family knows while the older generation still knows it: which piece came from which side, on what occasion, roughly when. That written record costs nothing today and is worth a great deal if the gold is ever sold or questioned.

What to keep: purchase invoices where they exist, any valuation reports, documentation of inheritance, and the sale invoice or buyback receipt. This section is general information and not tax advice.

Paper gold is taxed differently from physical gold, and the differences have been revised repeatedly, so this section describes the structure rather than fixed numbers.

Gold ETFs and gold mutual funds. Gains are treated as capital gains, with the classification between short term and long term determined by the holding period applicable in the year of sale. Both threshold and rate have been amended in recent Finance Acts. There is no GST on buying units, which is one structural advantage over physical purchase.

Sovereign gold bonds. Two separate streams. The interest paid on the invested amount is taxable as income in the year received. The capital gain on redemption at maturity has historically been exempt for individual holders. Gains on secondary market sale before maturity are treated differently.

Digital gold. Generally taxed in the same manner as physical gold. Confirm the treatment with the provider, as product structure varies between platforms.

Where this is genuinely relevant

For a household whose income falls below the taxable threshold, none of this changes very much, and the choice between formats should be made on access and liquidity rather than on tax.

Where it does matter is for salaried and professional households in Patna with a bank and demat relationship, and for whom the gold is genuinely long term savings rather than a reserve that may be needed. For that group the bond exemption on redemption at maturity is a real advantage, provided the money can be left alone until maturity.

Because these rules move, check the current position for the relevant financial year before choosing between formats on tax grounds. This is general information rather than advice.

Patna sits on one of the oldest continuously significant sites in India, and the contrast between that history and the state's present economic position is the most striking thing about it.

Pataliputra

The city was Pataliputra, capital of the Mauryan and later the Gupta empires, and for long stretches of ancient history the most important city in the subcontinent. It sat where it does for the same reason Patna does today, at a strategic point on the Ganga with river trade running east and west.

A capital of that scale had a substantial trade in precious metal, and gold moved through here as tribute, as coinage and as ornament for a very long time before any of today's markets existed.

The layers since

The city passed through Sher Shah Suri's rule, was rebuilt and renamed under the Mughals, and later became a significant East India Company trading centre for saltpetre, opium and grain. Each period left commercial districts behind, and the old city and the areas around Bakerganj carry that layered history.

Patna is also a major Sikh pilgrimage centre, as the birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh, and Takht Sri Patna Sahib draws visitors from across India and abroad.

What the modern trade looks like

Bakerganj has been the centre of the gold and silver trade for decades, and Hathwa Market alongside it. The trade is retail, family run and relationship based, serving a state capital and a very large rural hinterland.

What has changed in recent years is hallmarking becoming mandatory, national chains opening in the Boring Road and Kankarbagh belts, and a steady expansion of banking access that has begun to give households an alternative place to keep some of their savings. What has not changed is that for most families here, gold remains the primary one.

Patna's demand is high in frequency and modest in value per transaction, which is the opposite profile to a wealthy metro market.

What drives it

Weddings, which anchor everything. The Lagna season through the winter months carries the largest purchases most families will ever make, and social expectation around bridal gold is strong.

Chhath and the festive calendar, which drive ceremonial buying in both metals, with silver taking a larger share than in almost any other Indian city.

Migrant earnings, arriving through the year and concentrated around the Chhath homecoming, funding a meaningful share of household purchases.

And the savings function described in section 28, which produces a steady stream of small purchases whenever a household has surplus, unconnected to any festival.

The rural hinterland

Patna serves a very large rural catchment, and families travel in from across central Bihar for a wedding purchase because the choice and the making charges are better than in a district town. That makes the city's market considerably larger than its own population would suggest.

It also means agricultural conditions feed through. A poor harvest across the Bihar plains shows up in Bakerganj a season later, in the same way a good one does.

The consequence for reading this page. Patna demand is highly sensitive to price in the sense that households substitute silver and buy lighter, and highly insensitive in the sense that a wedding still requires what it requires. Both are true at once.

Volume and value tell different stories, and in a low income market the gap between them is wider than anywhere else.

By weight, the trend is clearly downward. Gold has risen faster than incomes in Bihar over the past decade, and households have responded by buying lighter pieces, lower karat pieces, and in a growing number of cases silver instead.

By value, spending has held up better, because higher prices offset lower weights.

What is actually changing

Not the desire to own gold, which is undiminished, but the ability to. A wedding set that a family could assemble a decade ago now requires a materially larger share of annual income, and the adjustment has come out of weight.

That has consequences beyond the shop. Where social expectation has not adjusted as fast as the price, families borrow to close the gap, and the borrowing is often at rates that make a difficult situation worse. Section 22 puts that at the top of its list for a reason.

The more encouraging change

Banking access across Bihar has expanded substantially, and a growing number of households now have a savings account they actually use. That does not replace gold and is not meant to. It does mean the next generation has an option their parents largely did not, and holding some savings outside metal is now possible for far more families.

What has not changed. Weddings remain the anchor, Chhath remains the defining occasion, migrant earnings still fund a large share of buying, and Bakerganj is still where central Bihar goes for a serious purchase.

Rates across Indian cities are set from the same national benchmark and then diverge slightly. On a typical day the spread between major cities is modest, commonly a hundred to a few hundred rupees per 10 grams.

Where Patna sits

Bihar is landlocked and Patna is a long way from any port. Metal reaches the city through the eastern trade, which is why Patna prices close to Kolkata, typically within a very narrow band, and slightly above the port cities by the cost of getting it here.

The Bihar Bullion Association distributes the daily reference the state's jewellers work from, so quotes across Patna are consistent on a given day and there is nothing to shop around for on the metal itself.

This is a price taking market. It receives a rate rather than setting one, and there is nothing unusual in that for a city of this kind.

The practical conclusion

The inter city difference is real, small, and not worth acting on. Travelling to Kolkata to save a hundred rupees on 10 grams costs more in the journey than it saves.

The making charge is a different matter entirely. The spread between Bakerganj and a branded showroom on the same piece runs to several thousand rupees on a wedding set, and that comparison takes one morning within the city. That is where the saving is.

Every city rate published on this site derives from the same national benchmark set by MCX and IBJA references. What varies between cities is the local physical premium, not the underlying price of gold.

Two consequences follow. A difference of a few hundred rupees per 10 grams between two cities is normal and does not mean one market is cheaper in any meaningful sense. And a large apparent difference between two published sources for the same city usually reflects a difference in what is being quoted, most often a pre tax bullion reference against a retail rate that already includes local premium.

The Kolkata comparison, which Patna buyers make most

Patna prices track Kolkata closely, so the two look almost identical once converted. The trap is the unit. Kolkata quotes in bhori, which is 11.66 grams, while Patna uses the 10 gram tola. A Bengal figure will look higher than a Bihar one until you convert both to per gram, and they will then be nearly the same.

Elsewhere, a Kerala pavan and a Tamil sovereign are both 8 grams. Always convert to per gram before concluding anything.

Comparing making charges

Patna quotes making in rupees per gram, as Jaipur and Chandigarh do. Most of southern and western India quotes a percentage of gold value instead. To compare, divide the per gram figure by the gold rate per gram, which converts it into a percentage.

Rates for other cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Kochi, Indore and Varanasi, are published on their own pages on this site and updated on the same daily cycle.

India produces very little gold domestically and imports the overwhelming majority of what it consumes. Bihar is landlocked, so none of that metal arrives directly. It reaches Patna through the eastern trade after passing through the ports.

Who may import. Import is restricted to authorised entities: nominated banks, agencies designated by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade, and qualified jewellers operating through the International Financial Services Centre route. Individuals cannot import commercially.

Duties applied. Basic customs duty together with the Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Cess is levied on landed value. These rates are set by policy and revised periodically, most visibly in the Union Budget.

Why duty matters. Because it applies to nearly all gold entering the country, a change flows into the retail rate almost immediately and nationwide. A duty cut produces a visible one off drop unrelated to any international movement, and an increase does the reverse.

Personal allowances

Returning Indian residents may bring limited quantities of gold jewellery within specified allowances that vary by gender and duration of stay abroad, with duty payable above the threshold.

Bihar has substantial migration to the Gulf alongside its much larger internal migration, so this is worth checking properly rather than relying on what a relative did previously. Allowances are revised periodically, and the current position should be confirmed with customs before travelling. Declare rather than risk it.

Note that internal migration within India involves no customs question at all. A worker returning from Delhi or Punjab with money or jewellery is moving within the country, and nothing in this section applies to them.

Government schemes have been introduced periodically to bring privately held household gold into the formal economy, allowing holders to earn a return on idle metal rather than paying to store it.

The general structure. Gold is deposited with a participating bank, assayed for purity, and held for a defined term. The depositor earns interest denominated in gold. At maturity, redemption is available in gold or cash depending on the scheme and tenure chosen.

Why the premise does not describe most households here

These schemes are designed for idle gold. The word idle is doing a great deal of work, and it does not describe a holding that is simultaneously the family's savings, emergency fund and collateral.

A deposit scheme requires giving up possession for a defined term and having the pieces melted for assaying. For a household that may need to pledge that gold at short notice, or that would never surrender inherited jewellery to a furnace, the scheme is not a poor deal so much as an irrelevant one.

Where it does fit

Coins, bars and plain gold held as genuinely long term savings by a household that has other liquid resources and pays locker rental on metal earning nothing. That is a real situation and it describes a minority of Patna holdings.

For everyone else, a gold loan achieves something closer to what a household actually wants: money now, jewellery retained, and the option to repay. That is the comparison worth making rather than deposit against locker.

Availability. Scheme terms, participating banks and tenure options have changed since introduction, and some variants have been discontinued or restructured. Check current availability directly with a participating bank rather than relying on any published summary, including this one.

You can work out what a piece should cost before you reach the counter, and Patna's per gram making convention makes the arithmetic unusually simple.

The formula

• Step 1 | Gold value | net gold weight in grams multiplied by today's rate for that purity
• Step 2 | Making | net gold weight multiplied by the rupees per gram figure
• Step 3 | Wastage | if charged separately, as a stated percentage of gold value
• Step 4 | Stones | on a set piece, stated separately by weight and value
• Step 5 | GST | 3 percent applied to the sum of the lines above
• Add | hallmarking charge, a small fixed amount per piece

Worked example

A 20 gram 22 karat piece at an illustrative 12,000 rupees per gram with making at 250 rupees per gram. Gold value 2,40,000 rupees. Making 5,000 rupees. Subtotal 2,45,000 rupees. GST 7,350 rupees. Hallmarking roughly 45 rupees. Total approximately 2,52,395 rupees.

Scaling to a wedding set

At 60 grams across a set, making at 250 rupees per gram is 15,000 rupees. At 400 rupees per gram it is 24,000 rupees. That 9,000 rupee gap is one number on one line, negotiated in one conversation, and it is larger than most families expect to find by simply asking.

Converting to compare with other cities

Divide the per gram figure by the gold rate per gram. At 250 rupees per gram against a 12,000 rupee rate, that is roughly 2 percent, which is low by national standards. At 420 it is around 3.5 percent. Both are well below what most Indian markets charge as a percentage, which is a genuine advantage of the Patna convention.

Run the calculation on the estimate before you pay. On plain gold it should reconcile to within the hallmarking charge. If it does not, ask which line accounts for the difference.