Ahead of its first quarter monetary policy review on July 31, the
Reserve Bank today said sacrificing some economic growth is necessary to
rein in price rise.
"Inflation hurts poorer people much more than it hurts rich people.
You cannot control inflation without sacrificing some growth that is
inevitable but the sacrifice of growth to manage inflation is only in
the short term," RBI governor D Subbarao said while delivering a lecture
at the Indian Institute of Management at Kozhikode.
In the medium term, there is actually no trade-off between growth and inflation, he added.
In view of slowing economic growth, there is clamour for rate cuts to
fuel expansion. In its June 18 policy mid-quarter review, the central
bank citing inflation as main reason had kept the interest rate (repo
rate) unchanged despite widespread anticipation of at least 0.25%
reduction.
Inflation inched up to 7.55% in May from 7.36% in the previous month
mainly due to spurt in prices of vegetables and costlier petrol.
Meanwhile, RBI also said it is planning to introduce a pilot project
for issuing of plastic currency as it has proven to be economical and
probably will save money.
Delivering the lecture on 'Reserve Bank of India: Making a Difference
in Everyday Life' at the IIM-Kozhikode, Subbarao said, "we have
contemplated this some 15 years ago. But gave it up. Now we are trying
to do it again as a pilot experiment."
A lot of research and analysis went into this about its cost and acceptability, he added.
source:moneycontrol.com
