Arvind Panagariya’s advice to RBI: ‘100 is just a number; let rupee depreciate or reserves will bleed out’

Arvind Panagariya, Chairman of the 16th Finance Commission, advises the Reserve Bank of India to allow the Indian rupee to weaken. He believes aggressively defending the currency with foreign exchange reserves is a losing strategy. Panagariya suggests that letting the rupee depreciate is the correct response to rising oil prices and currency pressure.