The Reserve Bank’s Central Board on Thursday discussed macroeconomic developments and constitution of Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), a broad based panel that would determine the benchmark interest rates.
The meeting, chaired by RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, also discussed RBI’s budget among other issues, and reviewed the activities of the Board for Payment and Settlement System for the year ended March 2016.
Besides, the Board which met in Bengaluru after a gap of 7 years, discussed the draft Annual Report for 2015-16, RBI said in a statement.
The meeting was also attended by government nominee director on the Central Board, Shaktikanta Das who is Economic Affairs Secretary, it said.
In a step towards operationalisation of MPC, Mr. Das had said recently that government will notify the rules “within few weeks” and thereafter appoint three government nominees.
Out of the six members of MPC, three will be from RBI — the Governor, who will be the Ex-Officio Chairman, a Deputy Governor and an Executive Director. The other three members will be appointed by the government on recommendations of a search-cum-selection committee, which will be headed by the Cabinet Secretary.
MPC will set interest rates by a majority, with a casting vote for the RBI Governor in the case of a tie. Presently, the RBI Governor enjoys overriding powers having a final say on monetary policy decisions.
In addition to RBI Deputy Governors Urjit R. Patel, R. Gandhi, S.S. Mundra and N.S. Vishwanathan, other Directors of the Central Board present at the meeting were Nachiket M. Mor, Damodar Acharya, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Bharat N. Doshi and Sudhir Mankad, the statement said.
