The Reserve Bank of India today left its key policy rates unchanged, in it monetary policy review. Headed by Reserve Bank governor, Urjit Patel, the Monetary Policy Committee for the fourth straight time kept the repo rate, the rate at which the RBI lends to banks, unchanged at 6.25 per cent. <br/><br/>The reverse repo, the rate at which the RBI borrows, was also kept steady, at 6 per cent. The Reserve Bank slashed the Statutory Liquidity Ratio, SLR, or the percentage of deposits that banks have to park in government securities, by 0.5 per cent, to 20 per cent. <br/><br/>The apex bank lowered its GDP growth forecast to 7.3 per cent for the current fiscal, from 7.4 per cent earlier. The RBI said implementation of the Goods and Services Tax is not expected to have a material impact on overall inflation. <br/><br/>Later addressing a press conference in Mumbai, Mr Patel referred to demonetisation and said that new figures released by Central Statistics Office present a better picture of the economy as a whole.

On expected lines, the Reserve bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan, in his last bi-monthly monetary policy review, today kept the key policy rates unchanged while maintaining an accommodative policy stance.<br/><br/>While announcing the monetary policy review at a meeting in Mumbai today, the RBI governor said that it has been decided to keep the policy repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent. Cash reserve ratio (CRR) has been kept unchanged at 4.0 per cent while the reverse repo rate remains unchanged at 6.0 per cent. The marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate have been kept at 7.0 per cent. <br/><br/>Going forward, RBI said risks to the inflation target of 5 per cent for March 2017 continue to be on the upside. It said the inflation which climbed to a 22-month high of 5.8 per cent in June — continue to be on upside on factors like food inflation, services and the effect of the seventh pay panel implementation to government employees. It said however, the strong sowing and the positive progress of the monsoon augurs well for the food inflation.<br/><br/>On GDP growth, RBI maintained its projection of 7.6 per cent on a gross value addition basis, saying the favourable monsoon which is 3 per cent above the average which raises agricultural growth and rural demand and higher consumption on the back of the 7th Pay Commission implementation will be aiding it.<br/><br/>'The central bank said the passage of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill augurs well for the growing political consensus for economic reforms. It said that while timely implementation of GST will be challenging, there is no doubt that it should raise returns to investment across much of the economy, even while strengthening government finances over the medium-term. This should boost business sentiment and eventually investment.