Mumbai: Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan kept the key policy repo rate unchanged at 8 percent on Tuesday, as widely expected, with consumer price inflation coming down this year after a series of tightening steps by the central bank.
The central bank also took steps to increase the availability of credit, reducing the mandatory amount of bonds lenders must park at the RBI - called the statutory liquidity ratio - by 50 basis points to 22.5 percent of deposits, starting in mid-June.
Economists in a Reuters poll had overwhelmingly expected the RBI would keep India`s policy repo rate on hold after last tightening by a quarter percentage point in January.
Since Rajan took the helm of the central bank in September, he has raised the repo rate by 75 basis points in a bid to tame high consumer inflation.
