According to sources from Mumbai, Reserve Bank of India for the second time in two-month raised interest rate by 0.25% on inflationary concerns and the central bank in its third bi-monthly policy of the current fiscal raised benchmark repo, or the short term rate at which it lends to other banks, by 0.25% to 6.5%. Meanwhile the 6 member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) headed by RBI Governor Urjit Patel kept its stance at neutral.
Previously for July-September, it pegged CPI-based retail inflation at 4.2% which it saw firming up to 4.8% in the second half of the current fiscal and currently the projected inflation rate is above its targeted comfort level of 4%. Furthermore RBI kept the GDP forecast for the current fiscal unchanged at 7.4% and saw it at 7.5-7.6% in the second half of the current fiscal. For the July-September quarter, it has projected inflation to be at 4.6%.
Moreover RBI made the
projections in its third monetary policy review for the current fiscal and the
retail inflation has been projected to rise further to 5% in the first quarter
of next financial year 2019-20. Firstly, the central government has decided to
fix the minimum support prices (MSPs) of at least 150% of the cost of
production for all kharif crops for the sowing season of 2018-19.
