RBI Monetary Policy: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday left interest rates unchanged for a third straight meeting as inflation stayed stubbornly high, and said the economy was recuperating fast and would return to positive growth in the current quarter itself.

RBI Monetary Policy: Here are the highlights:

  • The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) expects the Indian economy to contract at a pace of 7.5% in FY21.
  • Repo rate left unchanged at 4 percent; status quo maintained for the third consecutive policy.
  • MPC maintains an accommodative stance at least during the current FY & into the next year.
  • All MPC members voted unanimously for a status quo, accommodative stance.
  • The GDP will grow by 0.1 percent in the October-December quarter and by 0.7 percent in the following three months. Overall, the 2020-21 fiscal will end with a (-) 7.5 percent degrowth.
  • Headline retail inflation at 7.6 percent in October was well above the upper end of the central bank’s 2-6 percent target band. For H1 2021-22, RBI projected growth of 21.9 percent to 6.5 percent.
  • The central bank will use various instruments at the appropriate time to ensure ample liquidity is available in the system.
  • RBI raised the limit of contactless card transactions to ₹5,000 per usage from the current ₹2,000, with effect from January 1.
  • Real-time gross settlement systems (RTGS) will be available 24×7 in the next few days.

Mean-while, India recorded 35,551 new COVID-19 infections, taking the country’s coronavirus case tally to 95.3 lakh, the government data shows. Up to 526 people also lost their lives to the highly viral disease in this period. With this, a total of 1,38,648 people have lost their lives to Covid till now. Total active cases, or those receiving treatment for COVID-19, stood at 4,22,943, down nearly 5,700 in the last 24 hours.

The Aam Aadmi Party-led government in Delhi has informed the High Court that, for now, no night curfew would be imposed in the national capital, or parts of it, in view of the COVID-19 situation. “The Delhi Government has been taking all necessary measures, as required and demanded, by the ever-changing circumstances and (remains) committed to making every effort to arrest the spread of COVID-19 in the national capital,” the High Court was informed.