Citing inflationary concerns, the RBI on Tuesday kept the key policy rates unchanged. While the benchmark lending (repo) rate at 7.25 per cent and the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) at 4 per cent remained the same, the RBI trimmed the consumer inflation forecast for January-March 2016 by 0.2 per cent in its third bi-monthly policy review this fiscal, saying that growth is beginning to look up gradually.
“lower crude prices and better-than-expected monsoon are the reasons for trimming the January-March consumer inflation target,” RBI said. However, keeping the Government’s hopes alive, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan indicated that he could go for a rate cut ahead of the next policy review on September 29, depending on the macro-economic data and how the monsoon pans out.