A story about currency, cooking oil, and the silent tax on 1.4 billion Indians.
Most people don't think about the rupee until it becomes unavoidable. You're planning a trip abroad and suddenly your travel budget is 10% more expensive. Or you're buying a phone and the "imported" model costs ₹5,000 more than last year.
But the rupee's fall from ₹85 to ₹95 in the past 14 months is far bigger than travel budgets and imported gadgets. It's a silent, invisible tax on nearly everything.
The numbers first
From ₹85.53 in March 2025, USD/INR has crossed ₹95 in May 2026, setting fresh record lows almost every week. The rupee hit ₹94.71 in March 2026 and slipped further to ₹95.1 in early May, falling 1.7% in a single week across five consecutive sessions.
The five key causes: high crude oil import demand, FPI outflows of $17–18 billion, US tariff pressure on Indian exports, a widening current account deficit, and a narrowed US-India interest rate differential.
How does it affect you, specifically?
Cooking oil: Most of India's edible oil — palm oil, sunflower oil — is imported. A 10% weaker rupee = 10% more expensive cooking oil at your supermarket.
Medicines: India imports 60–70% of its Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) from China, priced in dollars. Your medicines cost more.
Electronics: Every iPhone, every laptop, every EV battery component — imported, dollar-denominated, now 12% pricier.
Your home loan: Not directly affected today. But if rupee weakness causes more inflation, the RBI can't cut rates. That ₹50 lakh home loan stays more expensive for longer.
Who wins?
The IT sector is celebrating. TCS, Infosys, HCL Tech, Sun Pharma, and Dr Reddy's earn in US dollars and report in rupees. Every rupee that weakens improves their INR margins without any change in business performance.
NRIs sending money home are happy too. ₹1 lakh from their relatives in the US is now ₹95,000 + instead of ₹85,000 + of purchasing power.
Is ₹100 coming?
No mainstream institution projects ₹100 in 2026. Bank of America and ING project recovery to ₹86–87. The ₹100 level is a bearish multi-year scenario for 2028–2030, requiring oil above $130 and major tariff escalation simultaneously.
The RBI has over $600 billion in forex reserves and is actively intervening through $10 billion buy-sell swaps and aggressive spot market operations to curb "excessive volatility."
The bottom line? The rupee's fall is not a crisis. But it is a slow, relentless cost increase that hits the most the people who can afford it least — fixed-income households that buy imported goods, take out loans, and don't earn a dollar salary. For them, the currency market is not an abstract financial concept. It's the difference between filling a full LPG cylinder and rationing gas for the month.