A rise in petrol and diesel consumption can help the government cut cesses on the fuels by Rs 4.5 a litre without impacting revenue collections of FY21, and help cool off the pressure on inflation, domestic rating agency ICRA said on Friday. Petrol consumption is estimated to increase 14 per cent in 2021-22 and diesel by 10 per cent on the lower base, rise in mobility and economic recovery, ICRA said. The rating agency added that it will result in an additional Rs 40,000 crore in revenue for the government through higher collections of the cess.
During the month, inflation in vegetables shot up to 35.99 per cent, as against 26.10 per cent in October. Likewise, the prices of cereals and eggs grew at a faster pace of 3.71 per cent.
ICICI Bank was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising around 3 per cent, followed by Axis Bank, HDFC twins, SBI, L&T, ONGC and Infosys. On the other hand, Sun Pharma, Asian Paints, Nestle India, UltraTech Cement and HUL declined. NSE Nifty rose by 79.60 points or 0.67 per cent to 11,914.20.
Fitch Solutions sees RBI keeping benchmark interest rates unchanged during the fiscal to March 2022 following its decision to buy Rs 1 lakh crore of government bonds. "We had initially expected another policy rate cut to arrest the rise in government bond yields since the Union Budget announcement in February. "However, having an explicit bond purchase guidance from the RBI following the announcement of the G-SAP will also achieve a similar effect, if not even be more effective than a rate cut on capping the increase in bond yields," it said in a note. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) held its policy repurchase (repo) rate unchanged at 4 per cent at its monetary policy meeting on April 7.
They pointed out that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman relies a lot on divestments, where the government under-performed in FY2019-20, to achieve the 3.8 per cent fiscal deficit target.
The downward surprise in Q2 stemmed from a stronger-than-anticipated drag from gross fixed capital formation and marginal weakness in private final consumption expenditure. In Q3, projection errors emanated mainly from a steep unanticipated contraction in gross fixed capital formation, which was the deepest in the new series of GDP.
RBI governor Das flags growth slowdown, deputy raises alarm on inflation
Inflation targeting has worked well and the government must stay with it, and the framework is going to work well in the period ahead also, former RBI Governor D Subbarao said on Thursday. He also said low inflation contributes to sustainable growth. Addressing the 'Times Network India Economic Conclave' virtually, Subbarao said the government's proposal to privatise some public sector units is not akin to selling family silver but it is a route for putting India on a sustainable growth path.
The IHS Markit India Manufacturing PMI rose from 51.2 in November to 52.7 in December. Factories benefited from a rebound in demand, and responded by scaling up production to the greatest extent since May. As per the survey, new work orders witnessed marked improvement, with the pace of expansion picking up to the fastest since July.
Many analysts over the past week have said the RBI has legroom to cut rates to the tune of 65 bps by June and some like Barclays and BofA have also spoken about the likelihood of an inter-meeting cut.
Retail inflation remained above the RBI's comfort level for the second consecutive month despite slipping slightly to 6.26 per cent in June while the factory output recorded a growth of 29.3 per cent in May, mainly on account of the base effect, the government data showed. The marginal slippage in the Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation was noticed despite little firmness witnessed in the food inflation which inched up to 5.15 per cent in June from 5.01 per cent a month ago. Retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 6.3 per cent in May 2021 and 6.23 per cent in June 2020.
However, the RBI is still not in a mood to issue an OMO calendar, which was the expectation in some sections of the market.
SBI was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying over 10 per cent, followed by Kotak Bank, Dr Reddy's, UltraTech Cement, ITC and HDFC Bank. On the other hand, Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, Maruti and HCL Tech were among the laggards.
FY16 GDP growth was seen at 7.5%, against 8.1-8.5% earlier.
The RBI on Friday said the impact of coronavirus outbreak on the economy will depend on the intensity, spread and duration of the deadly virus even as the central bank refrained from projecting any numbers for growth and inflation amid the widespread uncertainty. While announcing the seventh bi-monthly monetary policy statement for 2019-20, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said that in view of the impact of coronavirus pandemic, the growth projections for 4.7 per cent for the fourth quarter of 2019-20 and 5 per cent for the full fiscal are "now at risk".
RBi pushes for reinvigorating private investments, clearing infra bottlenecks and providing big thrust to Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
India's macroeconomic situation is improving fast and the country's GDP growth will turn positive in the third and fourth quarters of the current financial year, eminent economist Ashima Goyal said on Sunday. Goyal in an interview to PTI said the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and gradual unlocks announced by the government have helped in avoiding multiple COVID-19 peaks. The growth estimates by different agencies are being continuously revised, she said.
An immediate RBI rate cut will lower lending rates for banks' MSME/retail/mortgage loans before the 'busy' industrial season ends in March.
High inflation print is the price that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will have to pay to nurse a fragile growth back, say economists. Wholesale Price Index-based inflation rose to a record high of 12.94 per cent in May, aided by low base effect, but also because of higher fuel and commodity prices. Retail inflation, too, surprised by rising to 6.30 per cent, while the core inflation, which is the non-food and non-fuel component, rose to an 83-month high of 6.55 per cent. These numbers are much above RBI's upper limit of 6 per cent inflation target, but there is very little that the RBI can do at this moment.
The new rates, effective Wednesday, is the third reduction by SBI in this financial year having cut the rates by 5 bps each in April and May, while its home loan rates has come down by 20 bps during this period.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the central bank saw economic growth slowdown in February, prompting it to cut rates ahead of the curve and wondered why markets were surprised with the decision to pause rate reduction. Noting that there is a need for an "informed and objective discussion" on the country's economy, Das said the RBI would do "whatever is necessary" to address growth slowdown, spikes in inflation as well to ensure good health of banks and non-bank lenders. The apex bank went for five consecutive rate cuts starting in February this year, making it a cumulative reduction of 1.35 per cent.
The central bank tweaked the retail inflation range to 4.8-4.9 per cent in the first half of 2018-19, and 4.7 per cent in the second half.
This is the 22nd consecutive month that the manufacturing PMI has remained above the 50-point mark.
FY22 will be the year to rebuild with the IMF projecting output growth at 11.5 per cent, economic survey at 11.0 per cent and the RBI's Monetary Policy Committee at 10.5 per cent.
Rajan was expected to join the search committee to appoint three external members of a new six-member RBI Monetary Policy Committee
With Deputy Governor Viral Acharya and another member Chetan Ghate voting for a status quo, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das and three others outvoted them for reduction in repo rate to 6.25 per cent from the existing 6.50 per cent.
'There are some high-frequency indicators where uptick is visible and some where it is not'
Jaitley also hinted that these very economic realities could decide whether the government sticks to a fiscal consolidation roadmap or not.
Jaitley said inflation has been under control for long and is likely to remain so on the back of good monsoon and unlikely spike in oil prices.
The inflation in the food basket spiked to 7.89 per cent in October 2019 as against 5.11 per cent the preceding month.
In the Sensex pack, Hero MotoCorp, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Auto, Maruti and M&M were the top gainers, spurting up to 2.66 per cent.
Top gainers in the Sensex pack included Yes Bank, TechM, Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel, Maruti, Asian Paints and Hero MotoCorp - rising up to 5.30 per cent. The 50-share Nifty ended 85.65 points, or 0.79 per cent, higher at 10,948.25 points.
Analysts say RBI will cut rates because the liquidity crunch that began this time last year is still hurting the economy and also with an eye on the August industrial production numbers, which showed a contraction by 1.1 per cent -- the steepest in seven long years.
In its Fifth Bi-monthly Monetary Policy Statement, 2017-18, RBI said the second quarter growth was lower than the one that was projected in the October review, and the recent increase in oil prices may have a negative impact on margins of firms and Gross Value Added (GVA) growth.
The stock markets, which had opened in the green on rate cut hopes, tumbled after the monetary policy announcement.
Bajaj Finance was the biggest loser in the Sensex pack, tanking up to 8 per cent, followed by Hero MotoCorp, IndusInd Bank, Maruti and HCL Tech. Axis Bank, ITC, NTPC and M&M were among the top gainers.
In the current fiscal so far, retail inflation stabilised around 5 per cent, while wholesale price-based inflation averaged around 2.9 per cent during April-December.
'If the RBI now only prints Rs 100 in small denomination notes and the remaining amount is printed in Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 denominations, then by March-end the central bank can completely normalise the cash crunch situation.'
Wednesday's hawkish and essentially courageous decision underscores that Governor Urjit Patel will largely represent continuity, rather than a break, with the policies and approach of his predecessor, says Richard Iley.
In the last three years, public sector banks have responded to the RBI's policy rates more strongly than private banks.
