The Reserve Bank of India policy statement for August strikes a marginal hawkish tone with a firm eye on 6 per cent inflation target by January, 2016, State Bank of India (SBI) Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya said here on Tuesday.
As widely expected, the RBI, kept the repo rate unchanged at 8 per cent but cut the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) and held-to-maturity (HTM) by 50 basis points each. “The 50 basis points cut in SLR to 22 per cent from 22.5 per cent is expected to provide roughly Rs.40,000 crore growth-supportive liquidity to the system, and the move is not intended to trigger an interest rate cut,” said Ms. Bhattacharya.