The RBI (Reserve Bank of India) tried to boost the Indian currency on Thursday after it directed exporters to convert 50% of their dollar earnings in the Exchange Earner's Foreign Currency (EEFC) account to rupee. However, despite the RBI's intervention, the rupee was at a record low and there was hardly any noticeable movement in the currency. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Moses Harding of Indusind Bank said that the failure of RBI measures to remove the bearish pressure on the Indian currency is quite worrisome. According to him, the RBI has taken most of the measures for correction in the rupee. Now, it can fall back on India millennium deposit bonds (IMD) or more operative strictures in the market to improve the situation. Below is the edited transcript of the interview on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video. Q: Are you a little disappointed that RBI acted yesterday. They did say 50% of the dollar earnings in the EEFC account need to be converted into rupees. Despite that the rupee is still very weak. Where do you see it is headed now? A: Worry is that RBI is unable to remove the underlying bearish pressure on rupee despite all this effects, measures and aggressive dollar sales. I was just reading through the market behavior, post December measures. At that time, we saw a quick recovery in rupee from 54 to 52.10 or so and it stayed there for a couple of weeks. It started rallying below 52 all the way to 48.15 in first and second week of January, driven by FII flows into the market at that point of time. Unfortunately, the two sources of supplies to the capital account mainly from FIIs and supplies from the forward market are not relevant at this stage. There is absolutely demand for forward dollar and not much of a loss into the capital account. So, the sources of supplies that December rally got from the market, it’s unfortunately s not available at this point of time. It will be very tough to provide a trend reversal. Q: What are the measures, do you think, the RBI can take in order to stem the fall of the rupee and in terms of a level, this 54.30 level is not too far away. Do you think that’s coming soon and if yes, do you think we could even see 55-56 very soon? A: The RBI on the first day gave incentives to leave supplies and lack demand. Now, they have taken the stick to forcefully lead the supplies and lack the demand. So, demand-supply control has been taken. In addition to that they have been selling dollars aggressively in the market despite rupee liquidity increase in the system. Most of the measures, in my view, have been taken. The next option, of course, available is back to the India millennium deposit bonds and probably more operative strictures in the market .But that will be seen as more of a micro management. It will throw negative signals on the Indian economy, given, till such time the behavior of the dollar index and the stock market is very critical. Again, unfortunately during this time, dollar index has rallied from 78 to above 80 and there is a risk of extension of it going to 82, if euro-dollar is down to 1.26 or up to 1.25. Nifty also is looking weak to touch that 4531, which we saw in December. Overall, the market dynamics are against rupee, fundamentals are against rupee. Again these strong headwinds, RBI measures of physical intervention and effects of strictures are unfortunately not helping. 54.30 is on the card. But, having said that, the rupee moved towards 53.95 to 54.30. It will make the 3 months forward dollar attractive at above 55. So, there will be supplies. On the downside, 53.20 to 52.80, which will make the 3 month forward dollar below 54. It will be attractive to the importers

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