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For Indian businesses, this arrangement would mean they would get their bills cleared faster as no dollars would be involved.

This was brought up at Wednesday’s meeting of the National Economic Council chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, according to people with direct knowledge of the discussions.

At the meeting, Talukder said it would also alleviate the pressure on foreign currency given the large volume of payments to India.

“The pressure on reserves has come down a lot. The import bills have come down because of the measures taken. It is now possible to meet the import bills with the export proceeds and remittance inflows. But there are other dollar outflows that need to come down.”

And the arrangement with the RBI would help on this front.

Das is on board with the idea of the dual currency and the two central banks would be working on the modalities.

It would first be rolled out on a test basis.

But businesses would have to wait to pay their bills in rupees as it would need the cooperation of the private banks.

The governor would sit with the banks soon over the issue.