The size of the Reserve Bank of India's balance sheet increased by 8.46% to Rs 61,90,302.27 crore as on 31 March 2022, from 57,07,669.13 crore a year ago.

On the asset side, foreign investments grew 4.28% while domestic investments rose by 11.67%, gold by 30.07% and loans and advances by 54.53%.

On the liability side, deposits grew by 16.24% and notes by 9.86%, the RBI’s annual report for 2021-22 showed.

While income for the year increased by 20.14%, expenditure rose by 280.13%. The year 2021-22 ended with an overall surplus of Rs 30,307.45 crore as against Rs 99,122 crore in the previous year, resulting in its decrease of 69.42%.

Last week, the central board of directors of RBI had approved transfer of Rs 30,307.45 crore surplus to the government.

RBI said the domestic assets constituted 28.22% while the foreign currency assets and gold (including gold deposit and gold held in India) constituted 71.78% of total assets as on 31 March 2022 as against 26.42% and 73.58%, respectively, a year ago.

Provisions of Rs 1,14,567.01 crore and Rs 100 crore were made and transferred to Contingency Fund (CF) and Asset Development Fund (ADF), respectively, RBI said.

As on 31 March 2022, RBI held total gold of 760.42 metric tonnes compared to 695.31 metric tonnes a year ago. "The increase is on account of addition of 65.11 metric tonnes of gold during the year," RBI said.

RBI’s total expenditure rose 280.13% to Rs 1,29,800.68 crore in 2021-22, from Rs 34,146.75 crore a year ago.

Total employee cost, however, fell 19.19% to Rs 3,869.43 crore from Rs 4,788.03 crore in the year-ago period.

The decline was due to drop in Reserve Bank's expenditure towards accrued liabilities of various superannuation funds in 2021-22, the annual report said.