The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will kick-off its bi-monthly meeting cycle for FY26 in the second week of April, per the meeting schedule announced by RBI.

The first of the six three-day meetings for FY26 is scheduled from April 7 to 9; followed by meetings from June 4 to 6; August 5 to 7; September 29 to October 1; December 3 to 5; and February 4 to 6.

The Committee currently has six-members, including RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra; Nagesh Kumar, Director and Chief Executive, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, New Delhi; Saugata Bhattacharya, Economist, Mumbai; Ram Singh, Director, Delhi School of Economics; Rajiv Ranjan, Executive Director, RBI, and M Rajeshwar Rao, Deputy Governor in charge of monetary policy.

CPI inflation moderated to a seven-month low in February to 3.6 per cent on year undershooting the MPC’s 4 per cent target and from 4.3 per cent in January.

Radhika Rao, Senior Economist, DBS, said, “Beyond a 25-basis-point (bp) cut in repo rate in February (from 6.50 per cent to 6.25 per cent), we expect another 50 bp reduction in Q2 (April-June) 2025. This will amount to half of the US Fed’s 150 bp projection (100 bp delivered in 2024 and our baseline has two more cuts in H2—July-December 2025. A change in stance to ‘accommodative’ in April will not surprise us.”

Published on March 26, 2025