MUMBAI: With the rupee coming under stress having slipped to 83.56 against the dollar, the foreign exchange kitty has continued to go down for the second consecutive week. The week ending April 26 saw a steep $2.41 billion dip in the reserves to $637.92 billion, show the latest data from the Reserve Bank.
With this, in the past fortnight, the reserves have come down by $5.24 billion, after seven weeks of gains when it had touched a high of $645.6 billion. The previous week ending April 19 saw the kitty falling by $2.83 billion to $640.33 billion.
In the year ago period, the reserves were at a much lower level of $491.42 billion, which means that the RBI snapped up as much as $58.88 billion in the past 365 days. On the other hand, the gold reserves soared from 9.87 billion to $55.53 billion, which is as much as $45.66 billion of accretion in the span of a year.
According to the RBI's weekly statistical supplement released Friday, foreign currency assets dropped by $1.16 billion to $559.7 billion, while gold reserves fell by $1.28 billion to $55.53 billion whereas SDRs or the special drawing rights rose by $15 million to $18.05 billion and the reserve position in the International Monetary Fund gained $8 million to touch $4.64 billion.
Typically, the RBI intervenes in the forex market through liquidity management, which includes selling or buying dollars to support the rupee by preventing a steep depreciation or appreciation.