The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday released the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee for the financial year 2022-23, during which a total of six meetings will be held. The first meeting of the new financial year will be held during April 6-8.
According to the RBI notification, the rate-setting panels for the second, third and fourth bi-monthly monetary policies will meet during April 6-8, June 6-8 and August 2-4. Its fifth meeting will be held on 28-30 September this year, while the third monetary policy meeting will be held during 6-8 February, 2023.
The six-member MPC, headed by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, announced the bi-monthly monetary policy after deliberating on the prevailing domestic and international economic conditions. RBI has a government mandate to keep inflation under control at 4 per cent with up/down flexibility of 2 per cent.
Currently, consumer price index (CPI)-based inflation rose to an eight-month high of 6.07 per cent in February, above the RBI’s comfort level for the second consecutive month, mainly due to a rise in food prices.
Retail inflation in the food basket stood at 5.89 per cent in February as against 5.43 per cent in the previous month. In the food basket, inflation in cereals rose to 3.95 per cent; Meat and fish were 7.45 per cent, while for eggs, the rate of increase was 4.15 per cent during the month.
Vegetables also became costlier and the inflation rate stood at 6.13 percent. For spices, it increased to 6.09 per cent. In fruits, inflation remained stable at 2.26 per cent over the previous month.
In the last policy review meeting in February, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) unanimously decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 4 per cent, with an accommodative stance. This was the 10th time in a row that the MPC had put the key policy rate on hold. Retail inflation for the financial year 2022-23 was pegged at 4.5 per cent and the RBI has retained the inflation estimate of 5.3 per cent for FY22.
The marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the bank rate also remained unchanged at 4.25 per cent. The reverse repo rate was also kept unchanged at 3.35 per cent.
Repo rate is the rate at which the Reserve Bank of India lends to commercial banks, whereas reverse repo rate is the rate at which the central bank borrows money from commercial banks.
In a statement, RBI Governor Shaktikanda Das had said, “The MPC flagged potential downside risks to economic activity from the highly contagious Omron variant. Reassuringly, the symptoms have been relatively mild and are decreasing as rapidly as the pace of infection has increased.”
“However, there has been some deceleration in economic activity, as reflected in higher frequency indicators, such as the purchasing managers’ index for both manufacturing and services, consumption of finished steel and tractors, two-wheelers and passenger vehicles,” he added. sales,” he said. ,
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