Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today indicated that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would adjust policy rates in tune with the price situation.
"These are all weekly [inflation] figures. Monthly figure is yet to come. RBI is watching the situation. As and when they will consider necessary, they will adjust the monetary policy. That is their job and they are doing it efficiently and effectively," Mukherjee said.
"I would not like to make any comment on that [rate revision] right now. Only point I shall have to emphasise on is that this declining trend we shall have to watch for a longer period of time, not on a weekly basis," he said.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha, said, "In the forward guidance of the second quarter review of the Monetary Policy 2011-12, the RBI has reported that notwithstanding current rates of inflation persisting till November, the likelihood of a rate action in the December mid-quarter review is relatively low."
"Beyond that, if the inflation trajectory conforms to projections, further rate hikes may not be warranted," Meena added.
Food inflation moderated considerably to 8% during the third week of November from over 9% in previous weeks.
More From This Section
General inflation also declined to 9.73% in October.
In its mid-year credit policy review, the RBI had said that inflation, which was ruling near the double-digit mark, will start cooling by December this year and is likely to come down to 7% by March, 2012.
In a bid to tame inflation, which has been above the 9%-mark since December last year, the RBI has hiked interest rates 13 times since March, 2010.
The RBI raised the repo rate by 25 basis points to 8.50% and the reverse repo moved up by a similar percentage to 7.50% in its last policy review in October. Repo is the short-term rate at which the RBI lends to banks, while reverse repo is the rate at which it gets funds from banks.
The central bank has hiked policy rates five times this fiscal. In the last-one-and-a-half months alone, it has raised the key rate (repo) by 50 basis points.