As part of its measures to enhance transparency, the Reserve Bank of India published the minutes of its technical advisory committee meeting for the first time on Tuesday. The committee is an advisory body on monetary policy.

Its members are mainly deputy governors and executive directors of the central bank, and a couple of economists from outside. Being an advisory body, its recommendations are in no way binding on the RBI.

The minutes of the last meeting held on January 19 (just before the third-quarter monetary policy review on January 25th) showed that most committee members believed repo and reverse repo rates should be hiked by 25 basis points.

One member wanted a 50 basis points rise, while another suggested that the statutory liquidity ratio be raised in order to lower borrowing capacity of banks.

The rising current-account deficit also dominated the discussion, and there were two members who advocated a small and managed depreciation of the currency in order to tackle the deficit.

The minutes will be put out a month after every meeting.

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