MUMBAI: The Indian rupee slid to a record low of 52.77 on Monday as signs of a sharp slowdown in Asia's third-largest economy prompted investors to buy dollars.
Traders said possible buying by local oil importers, the biggest buyers of dollars in the local forex market, also pressured the currency.
At 4:53 p.m., the partially convertible rupee was at 52.76 per dollar, after closing at 52.03/04 on Friday.
RBI in a bulletin said that it had intervened in the forex market in October, for a second consecutive month, after the rupee came under withering selling pressure on deepening domestic and global growth concerns.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has always maintained that it does not target any specific exchange rate on the rupee and only intervenes to prevent excessive volatility in the foreign exchange market.
The rupee had fallen to as low as 50.32 per dollar on Oct. 21, and is down nearly 17 percent from its July peak this year. The unit touched a record low of 52.73 on Nov. 22 and losing 7 percent in the month, its worst fall in 16 years.
The local currency is the worst performing unit against the dollar among major Asian peers this year and investors continue to stay bearish on the rupee, a Reuters poll last week showed.
In fact, India may face its worst financial crisis in decades if it fails to stem a slide in the rupee, leaving the central bank with a difficult choice over how to make best use of its limited reserves to maintain the confidence of foreign investors.
RBI sold $943 million in October, but did not buy any dollars, as in the preceding September, where it had sold $845 million dollars and not purchased any, the bulletin showed.
The central bank's dollar sales in September had been its first after November 2010, RBI data showed.
