New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) continued maintaining an accommodative stance reiterating that protecting lives and livelihoods remains a clear priority amidst the current circumstances, said Sanjiv Mehta, President, FICCI. “Even as the Governor indicated steps towards a progressive return to normalcy in liquidity management, the emphasis laid on warranting policy support until a broad-based durable recovery finds its way is encouraging,” he added.

“Uncertainty continues to remain on fire on account of global and domestic factors with the underlying threat of the pandemic still not fully mitigated. The Central Bank has put across a GDP growth estimate of 7.8 per cent for the year 2022-23. The RBI has also assessed some improvement in capacity utilization levels in its surveys. However, the overall demand in the economy remains weak and is yet to touch pre-pandemic levels,” he said.

“In the last Union Budget, the government has given a lot of focus on CAPEX-led growth in the economy. This would help boost demand, improve capacity utilization levels, and generate more employment, which in turn would lead to greater demand. We need such a virtuous growth cycle and hope that RBI will work in close coordination with the government to ensure this,” added Mehta.

“Besides, we are happy to note the extension of the on-tap liquidity window for emergency health care services and contact intensive services till June 30, 2022, from March 31, 2022, as announced earlier. The contact-based services have been most severely hit by the recurring waves of the pandemic making a move to sustained recovery extremely difficult for the sector,” said Mehta.

“Also, the enhancement of the cap under e-RUPI vouchers issued by the Central government and State governments to Rs 1,00,000 per voucher from Rs 10,000 indicates a continued emphasis on digitization to assure better governance,” added Mehta. /BI/