The foreign exchange reserves of the country moved up further by $337 million to a new record high of $66,925 million during the week ended November 29.
According to the Reserve Bank of India's weekly statistical supplement, the foreign currency assets, which rose by $337 million to $63,640 million during the week, contributed the entire growth in the total forex reserves.
The special drawing rights and the gold reserve, however, remained steady at $7 million and $3,278 million respectively.
The country's foreign exchange reserves, which continued rising in the last few months had shot up sharply by about $18,813 million during the calendar year, of which the foreign currency assets contributed the lion's share of $18,389 million.
Gold reserves and SDRs also rose by $422 million and $2 million since January 2002.
RBI's intervention in the forex market to check the rupee's appreciation for better export competitiveness, coupled with appreciation of the non-US currencies held in the reserve were the main reasons for the rise in forex reserves, market experts said.
The loans and advances to the central government stood at Rs 101 crore (Rs 1.01 billion) as on November 29 as against nil in the previous week, while that of the state governments dropped by Rs 1,694 crore (Rs 16.94 billion) to Rs 4,157 crore (Rs 41.57 billion) from the previous week's Rs 5,851 crore (Rs 58.51 billion).
Source: UNI