The government today said the import of gold and silver amounted to 54.5 billion US dollars during the current fiscal from April 2011 to February 2012. This was stated by the Finance Minister Mr PranabMukherjee in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha. He said gold imports are estimated at 40.5 billion US dollars and silver at 1.9 billion US dollars in 2010-11. The Finance Minister said the government in the Union Budget for 2012-13 has proposed to increase basic custom duty on standard gold bars, gold coins of purity exceeding 99.5 per cent and platimum from 2 per cent to 4 per cent and on non-standard gold from 5 per cent to 10 per cent.