The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) added another 102 metric tonnes to the domestically held gold in April-September (H1FY25). The quantity of the precious metals stored in local safes stood at 510.46 metric tonnes as of September 30, up from over 408 metric tonnes as of March 31, 2024.
The central bank said it added another 32 metric tonnes of gold reserves in the six-month period, bringing the overall tonnage to 854.73 metric tonnes, as per the half-yearly report on the management of foreign exchange reserves.
India has been gradually moving gold reserves to local vaults—said to be located in the financial capital and Nagpur—over the past few years. In FY24, it moved 100 metric tonnes more from the UK to domestic locations.
The metal's movement, occurring 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.
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The RBI disclosure said 324.01 metric tonnes of gold were kept in safe custody with the Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and 20.26 metric tonnes were held as gold deposits. In value terms, the share of gold in the total foreign exchange reserves increased from 8.15 per cent as of March 2024 to about 9.32 per cent as of September 2024 due to an increase in tonnage and the surge in prices.
According to an RBI annual report, 413.79 metric tonnes of gold were held abroad as of March this year. In 2009, India bought 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund, after which it bought the precious commodity from the secondary market as part of its foreign exchange asset diversification efforts. Given its high value, officials from the Ministry of Finance, the RBI, and other agencies typically keep the movement of gold in complete secrecy.
