The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on Thursday said that there is no reason to revise the GDP growth projection downwards.
"The GDP growth rate projected by RBI for FY22 is 10.5 percent. I don't see any reason to revise the growth projection downwards," Das said while speaking at Economic Times Financial Inclusion Summit on Thursday.
Das said that in India, the second wave of the pandemic has taken a grievous toll both in terms of lives and livelihood. The recovery that had commenced in the second half of 2020-21 was dented by the second wave of the pandemic in April-May 2021. Our efforts towards financial inclusion, have helped in enabling the Government to provide seamless and timely financial support to vulnerable sections through direct benefit transfers (DBT).
He said that to mitigate the financial impact of COVID-19 related disruptions, the Reserve Bank has taken several policy measures to ease flow of credit at a lower cost to needy segments. These measures include lowering of policy rate, launching of on-tap liquidity schemes and channelising of liquidity through All India Financial Institutions and facilitating financial institutions to resolve stressed loans to individuals, small business and
MSMEs.
He said that in order to have a planned and structured approach to financial inclusion, banks have been advised by RBI to put in place financial inclusion plans (FIPs) consisting of achievements against several parameters. "Substantial progress has been made with respect to these
parameters, details of which are given in the Reserve Bank’s Annual
Report released in May 2021," he said.