The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday released the meeting schedule for the Monetary Policy Committee for the financial year 2022-23, during which there will be a total of six meetings. The first meeting of the new financial year will be conducted during April 6-8.
According to the RBI notification, the rate-setting panel will meet for second, third and fourth bi-monthly monetary policies during June 6-8, August 2-4 and September 28-30. Its fifth meeting will be conducted on December 5-7 this year, while the sixth monetary policy meet will take place during February 6-8, 2023.
The six-member MPC, headed by RBI governor Shaktikanta Das, announces the bi-monthly monetary policy after deliberations on the current domestic and international economic situations. The RBI has a government mandate to keep the inflation under check at four per cent with a up/ down flexibility of two per cent.
Currently, the Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation inched up to an eight-month high of 6.07 per cent in February, remaining above the RBI’s comfort level for the second month in a row, mainly on account of a rise in food prices.
The retail inflation in the food basket stood at 5.89 per cent in February, compared with 5.43 per cent in the previous month. In the food basket, inflation in cereals rose to 3.95 per cent; meat and fish to 7.45 per cent, while for eggs, the price rise rate was 4.15 per cent during the month.
Vegetables also got costlier with an inflation print of 6.13 per cent. For spices, it increased to 6.09 per cent. In fruits, the inflation remained static at 2.26 per cent when compared to the preceding month.
In the last policy review meet in February, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) unanimously decided to keep repo rate unchanged at 4 per cent, with the accommodative stance. It was the 10th consecutive time that the MPC kept the kept 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 5.3 per cent inflation projection 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 the commercial banks, whereas the 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 the potential downside risks to economic activity from the highly contagious Omicron variant. Reassuringly, the symptoms have remained relatively mild and the pace of infections is moderating as quickly as it surged.”
“There is, however, some loss of momentum in economic activity as reflected in high-frequency indicators such as purchasing managers’ indices for both manufacturing and services, finished steel consumption and sales of tractors, two-wheelers and passenger vehicles,” he added.
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