No need to make people panicky over Re fall: Cong

Despite the Rupee today breaching the 63-mark a dollar to end at a record low, Congress said there was no need to make people panicky and described it as a "global phenoemnon".
"Rupee depreciation is a very serious concern but it is global phenomenon. Between 2012 and March 2013, every major currency in the world depreciated against the US dollar because the US economy which was earlier growing at the rate of 0.5 percent but is growing at the rate of 2.5 percent," party MP Bhalchandra Mungekar told reporters here.
He added "let us not make the people panic....Let us see realistically. And though it is a matter of serious concern, let us not read a situatioin that the Indian economy is dead. After China, even today it is the only economy which, despite deacceleration of rate of economic growth, has grown at the rate of 5 percent during 2012-13."

Citing other reasons for the fall of the Rupee, Mungekar, a former member of Planning Commission, said all financial institutions (FIs) are withdrawing investments from developing countries and investing in dollar and American bonds because those bonds carry 2.5 percent higher rate of returns than that of the bonds of Indian government.
"Indian economy's size is 1.7 trillion USD. America has released 2 trillion dollars in the economy to provide liquidity in order to enable the people to purchase the bonds," he said addressing the Congress briefing jointly with party spokesperson Raj Babbar.
Mungekar maintained the central government and the Reserve Bank of India must intervene at an appropriate time.

"If FDI is not coming sufficiently and FIs are also leaving because the rate of interest in dollar are higher, then putting some restrictions on Indian industrialists on their investment abroad, these are absolutely temporary measures. There is no question of reversal of reforms," the Congress MP said.