The central bank bought USD 6.01 billion from the market and sold USD 3.43 billion in May, RBI said in its monthly bulletin release here today.
The amount purchased in the reporting month almost halved compared with RBI's purchase of USD 5.43 billion in April.
In May last year too, RBI was a net purchaser of the US currency after it bought USD 7.98 billion while it sold USD 6.19 billion from the spot market.
The central bank's intervention in the foreign exchange market is aimed at curbing volatility in the currency market.
In the forwards dollar market, the outstanding net forward purchase at the end of May stood at USD 1.86 billion as against a purchase of USD 5.17 billion as of April-end.
