Central Bank took calibrated approach to balance inflation, growth: Arun Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has described the RBI’s status quo policy as a calibrated approach to maintain a balance between growth and inflation and asserted that the government on its part will address the problem of price rise through improving supplies. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in its Second Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy Statement for this financial year, kept the key policy rates unchanged at 8 percent. However, to improve availability of funds, central bank cut the statutory liquidity (SLR) ratio, the amount of deposits that banks need to park in government securities, by 0.5 percent to 22.5 percent.

Finance Minister further added that there should be a balancing act between inflation and growth and the government will soon take measures to contain the rising inflation through improving supplies, particularly in relation to food inflation. Retail inflation inched up to 8.59% in April on y-o-y basis as against 8.31% in March led by a sharp rise in the prices of food articles. Inflation in the food category stood at 9.66 percent in April. The RBI has raised lending rate three times since September’13 in order to tame price rise through cooling demand. Though tight monetary stance helps to crush marginal prices pressure, the apex bank’s move is adversely impacting the country’s economic growth.

Regarding the economic growth, Further Minister stated that fiscal consolidation, restarting the investment cycle and employment generations are the top priority for the government.  India's economic growth stayed below 5 percent for the second year in a row at 4.7 percent during FY14.