The war in West Asia has exacerbated a key pain point for the country’s economy: the rupee’s value.

After closing around 91-per-dollar on February 27, the rupee fell by as much as 4.5% to 95.24 in March before action by the RBI to curb speculative bets helped it gain some ground. But new RBI data shows that the situation could have been worse if not for a long-term bet placed in mid-2022 by authorities that has begun paying some dividends.

The data shows that Indian traders settled more than Rs 14,000 crore of imports in rupees in February this year — up from around Rs 11,000 crore in January. This amounts to roughly $1.5 billion (Rs 14,057 crore) of foreign exchange being saved by India in February alone.…