Not reading too much into IMF's 'crawl' remark: RBI Dy Guv Poonam Gupta

RBI deputy governor Poonam Gupta says the IMF's 'crawl-like' label is a sub-classification based on recent volatility data, and does not change India's managed-float exchange rate regime

India’s exchange regime continues to be a managed float and there is no need to read too much into recent “crawled” peg comment by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Reserve Bank of India’s deputy governor Poonam Gupta said.

 

“I would not read much into it. It’s just based on the cross-country comparison of India having this much volatility compared

 

to some other countries. The fact remains that India is a managed float just like most of the emerging markets,” Gupta said.

 

The IMF recently classified India’s exchange rate arrangement as ‘crawl like arrangement’ from ‘stabilised arrangement’, indicating gradual adjustments of the exchange rate to reflect inflation gaps between a country and its trading partner. 

 

Gupta said IMF has three classification of exchange rate regimes in three categories -- fixed, floating and managed float.

 

While only a handful of countries have fixed exchange rate, most of the advanced economies have free float and all the emerging markets, including India have managed floats.

 

“Now, within the managed float, which is that RBI tries to curb undue volatility on each side of a reasonable level. IMF looked at the past six months of the data and they found this volatility to be contained in a range that they have in mind and based on that, they had a sub-classification which is called crawling peg,” she said.

 

The Indian rupee has come under pressure in recent times which has depreciated 4.9 per cent in 2025 to become the worst performing currency in Asia.

 

On the IMF’s decision to rate India’s national accounts data with a ‘C’ grade in its Data Adequacy Assessment (DAA) for the second consecutive year, Gupta said it has more to do with updating the base year and not data quality.

 

“When one digs further into their footnotes, it’s about the base revision. It’s not about the quality of data. It’s not about the sanctity of the numbers that are put out. It’s about a base which has been perceived to be dated. With this revision, I think they would be satisfied on this count,” she said.

 

RBI governor Sanjay Malhotra said the estimates, like GDP, inflation, are fairly accurate. “Of course, there is scope for improvement,” he added.