Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the rupee has not weakened but it is the dollar that has strengthened, as she defended the 8 per cent slide in the value of Indian currency against the greenback this year.

Speaking to reporters after attending the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, she asserted that the fundamentals of the Indian economy were strong and that inflation was low compared to other parts of the world.

“First of all I would look at it as not rupee sliding, I would look at it as dollar strengthening, dollar strengthening incessantly,” she said in reply to a question on the weakening rupee.

All other currencies around the world are performing against a strengthening dollar, she said.

“And I’m not talking technicalities, but it is a matter of fact that India’s rupee probably has withstood this dollar rate going up, the exchange rate in favour of dollar strengthening is there and I think the Indian rupee has performed much better than many other emerging market currencies.”

The rupee settled at 82.35 against the dollar on Friday, having touched another record low of 82.68 on Monday after which the RBI is likely to have intervened. Some analysts say the central bank may have spent nearly $100 billion in the past year to defend the rupee.

India’s forex reserves stood at $532.87 billion in the week through October 7, a far cry from $642.45 billion seen a year back. The RBI as well as Sitharaman have in the past attributed the decline in the forex reserves to valuation changes arising from the appreciating dollar.

Sitharaman on Saturday evening said the RBI’s efforts aimed at only curbing excess volatility and its intervention in the market is not to fix the value of the rupee.

“I think efforts by the RBI (are) more towards maintaining a certain... more towards seeing (that) there is not too much of volatility,” she said. “It is not to intervene in the market to fix the value of the rupee. So, containing the volatility is the only exercise that RBI is involved in. And I have said this before, the rupee will find its own level.”

“The fundamentals of the Indian economy are good, macroeconomic fundamentals are good. The foreign exchange reserve is good. This is what I keep repeating that inflation is also at a manageable level,” she said.