Finance Minister P Chidambaram is meeting heads of public sector banks today to review financial performance and credit flow to productive sectors in the light of subdued economic activity, among other issues. The meeting is expected to dwell upon steps to increase credit flow to micro, small and medium enterprises farm sector, infrastructure and housing sector.

AIR correspondent reports, the high-profile meeting comes in the backdrop of the half-yearly review of monetary policy by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) wherein the central bank left benchmark interest rate unchanged on concern of inflation. However, it reduced cash reserve ratio by 0.25 per cent to infuse additional liquidity of around 17,500 crore rupees into the financial system. Meanwhile, RBI has also revised downwards the GDP growth estimate to 5.8 per cent from the earlier 6.5 per cent, while increased March-end headline inflation forecast to 7.5 per cent.