The rupee fell by 58 paise to finish trading at a record low of 81.67 against the US dollar on Monday, PTI reported.

This was the eighth trading session when the currency declined, according to Moneycontrol.

The rupee had breached the 81-mark for the first time on Friday. It had finished trading at an all-time closing low of 80.98 on that day.

Foreign exchange traders have attributed the escalation of geopolitical risk in Ukraine and rate hikes by the United States Federal Reserve for the dwindling value of the rupee.

“Focus now shifts to Reserve Bank of India’s meeting this week,” Senior Research Analyst at Reliance Securities Sriram Iyer said, according to PTI. “We expect RBI to hike rates by 50 bps to cool stubbornly high inflation and prevent the currency from weakening further.”

Amid the depreceiation of rupee, Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson Clyde Crasto on Monday urged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to concentrate “more on the finance ministry and less on Baramati”.

The town of Baramati in the Pune district is the hometown and stronghold of NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

Last week, Sitharaman visited Baramati for three days as part of a campaign by the Bharatiya Janata Party to strengthen the party organisation in 144 Lok Sabha constituencies.

On Saturday, the finance minister had said that the rupee has “held back very well” against the United States dollar as compared to other currencies.

She also said that the finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India were keeping a close watch on the rupee.

Last week, Capital market company ICICI Securities had said that the rupee is likely to depreciate to 81.50 in the coming month.

Meanwhile, equity markets suffered heavy losses on Monday as the 30-share BSE Sensex lost 857 points or 1.48% at 57,241. The broader 50-share NSE Nifty also slumped by 284.20 or 1.64% at 17,043.

In the Sensex pack, Power Grid, Tata Steel, Maruti, NTPC, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Bajaj Finance suffered losses between 2% to 7.18%.