RBI's Inflation Mandate Failure Report Cannot Be Made Public, Government Tells Parliament

The government on Monday told Parliament that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had submitted its report on the breach of the inflation target for three consecutive quarters, but it cannot be made public per the provisions of the RBI Act.

Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary told Lok Sabha that the relevant provisions of the RBI Act do not allow the report to be made public.

An out-of-turn meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India was held in early November to discuss the report to be sent to the central government for failing to maintain the inflation mandate.

Under the flexible inflation targeting framework introduced in 2016, the RBI is deemed to have failed in managing price rises if the CPI-based inflation is outside the 2-6 per cent range for three quarters in a row.

In October, retail inflation was 6.77 per cent and is now over the 6 per cent upper band for over three consecutive quarters.

The data showed that India's average retail inflation during January-March, April-June, and July-September 2022 was at 6.3 per cent, 7.3 per cent, and 7.0 per cent, respectively.