New Delhi, Nov 3 The government today said the RBI's move to buy 200 tonnes of gold from multilateral lending agency IMF provided a healing touch to the nation's pride that was dented about two decades back when the country sold its gold for a few hundred million dollars.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said one should not read much into the RBI's purchase of gold from the International Monetary Fund, but added it is significant as it reminds of the days when India's sentiments were outraged.

"It has much more significance because for many of you it is not the remote past,... how the sentiments of the country felt outraged when we had to pledge gold to Bank of England just for borrowing few hundred million dollars to maintain our essential import requirement," he said at the Economic Editors' Conference here.

- (Agencies)