The Reserve Bank of India doubled its gold purchase to 65 tonnes in FY 22, bringing its total holding to 760.42t, as part of its asset diversification policy, with gold showing a better performance as a safe asset class during the recent global financial turmoil. RBI bought 33.9 tons of gold in the nine month period between June 2020 and March 2021. The value of RBI's gold holdings went up by 30% to Rs 3.22 lakh crore. Gold valued at 1.25 lakh crore is held as an asset of the RBI's issue department and gold including gold deposit valued at 1.97 lakh crore is held as an asset of the banking department. In its annual report, RBI said that the higher valuation was due to additional purchases and also due to the increase in the price of gold and depreciation of rupee against dollar. In the recent financial cycles, the observations across the various phases of the financial cycles indicate that gold s performance as a safe asset has also improved as a risk hedge to the US dollar, in addition to providing a greater risk hedge to the US dollar. The domestic assets of the RBI constituted 28.22%, while the foreign currency assets and gold including gold deposit and gold held in India constituted 71.78% at the end of March, against 26.42% and 73.58% a year ago. At the end of March, RBI held 760.42 metric tons of gold, including gold deposits of 11.08 metric tons. 453.52 metric tons of gold are held overseas with the Bank of England and the Bank of International Settlements BIS, while 295.82 metric tons of gold are held locally. The share of gold in the total foreign exchange reserves increased to 7% at the end of March from 5.88% six months prior to that.