RBI Turns 90: Need To Prioritise Growth To Help India Become Developed Nation, Says PM Modi

RBI At 90: The Prime Minister applauded the monetary policy committee (MPC) of the bank for doing ‘some very good work on its mandate over the years’

Growth along with trust and stability should be the main priority of the Reserve Bank of India in the next decade, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday. Commemorating the 90th anniversary of the RBI, the PM addressed an event in Mumbai and said that the central bank’s focus for the next 10 years should be completely on boosting growth to achieve the goal of developed India, while also maintaining trust and stability. 

The PM said that the RBI will also mark its 100th anniversary in 2035 and going by the mantra of the regulatory body, “The RBI should make fast growth its top-most priority, along with focusing on trust and stability,” reported PTI. Notably, the banking regulator has prioritised the goal of keeping inflation in check since 2016, even as some expectations of boosting growth via measures like rate cuts floated around.

Appreciating the RBI’s work, the PM stated, “The reflection of double-digit inflation rate was not visible in the financial policies earlier.” He credited his government for providing the regulator the rights to undertake measures to control inflation. At the same time, he also applauded the monetary policy committee (MPC) of the bank for doing ‘some very good work on its mandate over the years’. Notably, the comments come just days ahead of the RBI’s first MPC meeting of the 2024-25 fiscal year, scheduled for April 3-5 this week. 

Elaborating on the government’s efforts, the Prime Minister said that delivering on fiscal consolidation and active price monitoring also helped ease inflation. “Inflation is at a moderate level, despite the Covid pandemic or the challenges posed by wars in various countries. India followed a path where it took care of both financial prudence concerns and also the requirements of the common man during the pandemic. At a time when many countries of the world are still struggling to come out of the shocks suffered during the pandemic, the Indian economy is creating new records,” the PM added.

The PM noted that every developing country needs to balance inflation control and growth and said that the RBI can develop a model and act as a leader to help broader the ‘Global South’.