India's foreign exchange reserves dropped to $545.652 billion in the week ended 16 September, the lowest since 2 October 2020. This was the seventh consecutive week of fall, data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed.

In the prior week ending 9 September 2022, the reserves stood at $550.871 billion after declining by $2.234 billion.

The fall has been largely due to the RBI’s intervention in the currency market to stem the rupee’s sharp slide against the dollar, analysts said. For the week ended 16 September, foreign currency assets stood at $484.901 billion, gold reserves at $38.186 billion and special drawing rights at $17.686 billion.

The Indian rupee on 23 September fell 41 paise to all-time low of 81.20 against US dollar in early trade amid US Treasury yields climbing to fresh multi-year highs and dollar demand from importers. It touched the record intra-day low of 81.26 against the greenback and recovered some ground to close Friday at 80.99 after RBI intervened in the market.