I still don't know whether it is good or bad for the government to have huge deposits of foreign currency all locked up.

I think the figures given by you are wrong. From what I could source out from the net by a quick scan of some sites including Wikipedia, the countries with major FE reserves are (all in billion US $) and as of May 2008:-
1. China - 1796
2. Japan - 996
3. Russia - 558
4. India - 311
5. Taiwan - 290
6. S. Korea - 258
7. Brazil - 200
8. Singapore - 176
9. Hong Kong - 159 ...more

Comrade P. Sharma, the govt is merely boasting about what it has accomplished since 1989. Ever since we supposedly "liberalized" our economy, the primary goal has been the accumulation of FDI as if we were dollar Talibans lol.

Seriously, the FDI accumulation policy is dumb. It's sort of like accumulating those foreign currency notes just for the sake of accumulating them. China has a large FDI, but that's justified because they did that AFTER they captured over 80% of the West's TOTAL manufacturing base. But there's no need for that in India at all.

Well, how's it going to HELP the economy?! Well, helping the economy :O According to the modern Indian mindset, those things are reserved for us illetrate idealists....whereas the "knowledgeable soplisticated (spelling deliberate) volk" go about doing completely moronic stuff....which are supposedly in the "Enlightened interests of the nation." Stooooooopz!

Speaking of "helping the economy" how is destroying the PDS & CMP structu ...more

Foreign Exchange management is a tricky issue. BTW, a forex reserve of USD 200 billion is good and moderate only compared to other contemporaries. In 1990-91, you must have been a small child to understand these issues; otherwise those who have seen the Bop (Balance of Payment) crisis in those days will feel much relieved with this figure of 200 billion. At that time, Indian Govt. had foreign exchange to pay for petroleum import bill of not even a month. You can ask Rajnish Rediff, Mitali Chaudhary and others also, those who have seen that time. Manmohan Singh had categorically said that he did not have a magical wand to bring the money.
I do not know why people are giving unnecessary credit to Morarji Desai for the spadework done by Manmohan Singh and P.V. Narsimha Rao. Here I wish to state that I am not a Congressman, nor do I support all the political ideologies of Congress, but what these two gentlemen did at that time was simply great and today the economic reforms that you see a ...more

Its just to attract the people that what they have acheived in this five years for the coming elections anslo the ocuntry which has not seen this much in past will defiitely be mad to see thais much amout in thier tijori

That is a huge as long as India is concerned.

This is wht great two economist did till now.. weighting basket of foreign currancy since last four years

The govt made a collection of huge amount of dollars as a step to prevent the bad effects of disposing off our gold deposit ( dony by morarji desai)...it was a good step taken by rajiv gandhi to suppot our currency...

I agree with you
we are just being befooled

It shows the incapability of Indian Govt showing it as a big achievement and uncontrolled inflation rate on the other hand.