The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) added 25 tonnes of gold to its reserves in the second half of FY25, bringing the total to 879.59 tonnes. This move comes amid increased geopolitical tensions and a rally in gold prices.
The central bank now holds 879.59 tonne of gold in its reserves as against 854.73 metric tonne it held at end-September 2024.
In FY25, the central bank added over 57 tonne of gold to its reserves, in a period which saw a 30 per cent rally in the prices of the precious metal. This is the largest yearly addition in the last seven years.
The quantum of the precious metal stored locally grew marginally to 511.99 tonne, as per the Half Yearly Report on Management of Foreign Exchange Reserves by the central bank.
Apart from the gold stored in vaults locally, 348.62 tonne was in safe custody of Bank of England and Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and 18.98 tonne was held in the form of gold deposits.
It can be noted that in the first half of FY25, the RBI had moved a larger quantum of gold to local vaults. The overall quantity of the precious metal stored in local safes stood at 510.46 tonne as of September 30, which was up from over 408 tonne on March 31, 2024.
The movement of the commodity, happening at a time of increased geopolitical tensions globally, was said to be one of the biggest movements of gold undertaken by India since 1991, when it had to pledge a substantial part of the gold holding to tide over a foreign exchange crisis that resulted in its movement out of vaults.
Share of gold in the total foreign exchange reserves increased to 11.70 per cent as at end-March 2025 from 9.32 per cent six months ago, the report said.
The overall forex reserves decreased to USD 668.33 billion in March 2025 from USD 705.78 billion at end-September 2024, the report said.
These reserves are sufficient to cover 10.5 months of imports now, down from the 11.8 months in September 2024.