Reserve Bank of India will announce its bi-monthly policy today amid expectations of a continued pause on the key interest rate. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das will announce at 10 AM the decisions taken during the 3-day meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).
For a year, the Reserve Bank has kept the short-term lending rate or repo rate stable at 6.5 percent. The benchmark interest rate was last raised in February 2023 to 6.5 percent from 6.25 percent to contain inflation driven mainly by global developments.
Experts across sectors are of the view that the central bank for the sixth time in a row will not tinker with the repo rate, which currently stands at 6.5 percent mainly due to concerns over inflation. The government has mandated the central bank to ensure the retail inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) remains at 4 percent with a margin of 2 percent on either side. The MPC consists of three external members and three officials of the RBI.
The external members of the panel are Shashanka Bhide, Ashima Goyal, and Jayanth R Varma. Besides Governor Das, the other RBI officials in MPC are Rajiv Ranjan (Executive Director) and Michael Debabrata Patra (Deputy Governor).