The rupee has gained almost 10 percent this year and 14 percent over the past 12 months against the dollar, denting the earnings of an industry that gets two-thirds of its 50 billion dollars in annual revenue from the US.

"It's not a market driven by market forces alone," said Kiran Karnik, president of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), in an interview here. "These are not normal times."

"There's no point in the government pretending that this is a perfect market," Karnik said. "That's an unreasonable attitude to adopt; there's scope for (the government) doing things" to stem the rupee's rise.

Indian entities have raised almost 12 billion dollars abroad in recent months which they have brought home and converted into rupees, betting the currency will extend its gains and in the process driving it up further, Karnik said.

"Earlier, you wouldn't raise money if you didn't really need it," he said.

"Now you are able to raise money abroad, so you are doing it, and converting it into rupees. You convert the money back into dollars three months later.

"That is creating tremendous pressure," Karnik said, adding: "Any dollar inflows of of this magnitude are going to depress the dollar."

He said NASSCOM, which represents the information-technology industry that has led Indian economic growth in the past two decades, has sought intervention by the government, which is sitting on record foreign exchange reserves of about 200 billion dollars.