MUMBAI - The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had wound down much of its forward dollar holdings by the end of October, data released on Tuesday as part of the central bank's monthly bulletin showed.

The RBI said its net forward dollar holdings stood at $241 million at the end of October, compared with $10.42 billion as of end-September. At the end of March 2022, the central bank had a forward dollar book of $65.79 billion.

The central bank has been intervening in the spot and forwards market to protect the rupee. More recently, it has taken delivery of forwards to help shore up its spot dollar reserves, according to traders. In October, the RBI sold a net of $922 million in the spot foreign exchange market, the data showed.

The RBI said it bought $24.8 billion and sold $25.7 billion in the spot market.

The rupee tumbled to a record low of 83.29 to the dollar in October and traders believed the RBI intervened by selling dollars to support the local unit.

(Reporting by Siddhi Nayak and Ira Dugal; Editing by Mark Porter)