Rupee fall no macro worry, was long overdue: Panagariya

Former Niti Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya has opined that rupee depreciation was long overdue, saying appreciated currency had hurt the country's exports.

Panagariya further said India's macroeconomic management is sound and there was no reason to worry.

"The main news recently in the macro story is depreciation of the rupee. But this had been long overdue.

"The real exchange rate has seen large appreciation in recent years and this has hurt our exports," he told PTI in an interview.

The rupee on August 16 slumped to a life-time low of 70.32 to the US dollar on strong demand for the greenback.

The rupee on Friday staged a good recovery to end higher by 20 paise at 69.91 against the US currency.

Panagariya who is currently a professor of economics at Columbia University further said, "I am personally very pleased the RBI has used our foreign exchange reserves prudently in managing the exchange rate."
On the possibilities of populist measures being announced by the Modi government ahead of 2019 general elections, Panagariya said that the risk is omnipresent "but I do not see this happening."