India’s foreign exchange reserves continued its fall for the fifth straight week as the Reserve Bank of India appears to be selling dollars from its coffers to prevent sharp depreciation of the rupee amid a surge in global crude prices.

The reserves fell by $2.471 billion in the week to April 8 to $604.004 billion, RBI data showed.. In the last five weeks, reserves fell by a massive $28.5 billion.

RBI does not give reasons behind changes in forex reserves.

The foreign currency assets, which includes holdings of dollars as well as other global currencies such as euro, pound and yen expressed in dollar terms, fell $10.7 billion in the reporting week to $539.727 billion.

Forex reserves were at its peak at $642.453 billion on September 3 last year.