No needy sector of economy will face liquidity crunch: Das

MUMBAI: Governor Shaktikanta Das, who in his maiden monetary policy review announced a surprise 25 bps rate cut Thursday, said the Reserve Bank is continuously monitoring liquidity situation and assured that there will be no scarcity of funds for any needy sector of the economy.

He said the assessment of the system-wide liquidity is made on a regular basis and sufficient amount of funds will be infused whenever needed.

"The RBI has been constantly and continuously monitoring the liquidity situation and based on requirement, we will ensure that there is no liquidity scarcity," Das told reporters in the customary post-policy interaction. Deputy governor Viral Acharya said the RBI has been injecting system-wide liquidity through open market opera- tions (OMOS) and so this fiscal year, it has injected Rs 2.36 lakh crore of fresh liquidity into the system and for February, it has already announced Rs 37,500 crore worth of OMOS.

"At present the liquidity is in surplus. There is enough liquidity for those who are able to get it from lenders," Acharya noted. When asked if RBI may taper its OMOS since the liquidity situation has become surplus, Das said it will depend on the evolving situations.

"There is an assessment on liquidity that's regularly made, not just monthly or fortnightly but every week or every day. Whenever there is a requirement, we will infuse the necessary liquidity into the market," the governor said.

He said the RBI will also take into account the interim dividend payment which is coming up and will ease the liquidity situation further. "The interim dividend payment has been mentioned and that's the matter which the central bank will consider and decide," Das added.

In the sixth bi-monthly monetary policy review, the RBI reduced the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 percent and also changed the policy stance to 'neutral' from the earlier 'calibrated tightening', signalling further softening on its approach to rates. The central bank also cut its estimates on headline inflation, which cooled off to an 18--month low of 2.2 percent in December—for the next year, and expects the numbers to print in at 2.8 percent in the March quarter, 3.2-3.4 percent in first half of the next fiscal and 3.9 percent in the third quarter of FY20.