The country's foreign currency assets, however, dipped by $42 million during the week to touch $26.54 billion. The SDR reserves remained unchanged at $113 million.

The centre's recourse to ways and means advances was up by Rs 904 crore to touch Rs 3,330 crore for week ended October 30. The government subsequently privately placed Rs 5,000 crore with the Reserve Bank of India on November 2 through a five- and a six-year paper. It is likely that the government must have breached the 75 per cent mark of its limit which forced the private placement.

Money supply (M3)n was down marginally to 20.5 per cent for the fortnight ended October 23, as compared with 20.6 per cent in the previous fortnight. During the year, till date, the M3 has grown at10.9 per cent and is mainly on account of the rise in the net Reserve Bank of India credit to the government which went up by 8.9 per cent during the year as on October 30.

It went up by 22.3 per cent on a YoY basis. The net bank credit to the government has also gone up 17.3 per cent on a YoY basis. However, during the fortnight ended October 23, net bank credit to the government fell by 0.5 per cent to Rs 370781 crore.