Moments after Union minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said that the RBI should "definitely cut interest rates", governor Shaktikanta Das quipped that he will "reserve" his comments for the upcoming monetary policy in December.
Both Goyal and Das were speaking at the CNBC-TV18 Global Leadership Summit in New Delhi.
During his keynote address, Das said that the challenge for central bankers has always been between "doing too little or too late on the one hand, and too much or too early on the other."
Live updates: CNBC-TV18 Global Leadership Summit
Das said that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in October decided to change the stance to 'neutral', which provides greater flexibility to the central bank on taking a call on rate cut.
At the October MPC, RBI kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 percent but shifted its stance from ‘withdrawal of accommodation’ to ‘neutral’.
However, when quizzed about Goyal's call to cut repo rate, Das smilingly said: "The next Monetary Policy is coming up in the first week of December. I would like to reserve my comments for that. Thank you."
The hopes of a rate cut by MPC in December faded after India’s inflation in October breached the six-percent limit set by the Reserve Bank of India. The CPI inflation rose to a 14-month high of 6.2 percent.
The October reading raised fears that the Reserve Bank of India may hold rates for the eleventh consecutive time at its meeting in December.
During his address at the Global Leadership Summit earlier, Commerce Minister Goyal said that RBI should definitely cut interest rates but added that it was his personal view.
"RBI must cut interest rates. It’s a flawed theory to consider food inflation for making a choice on cutting rates. This is my personal view and not that of the government," he said.
Goyal asserted that inflation will come down by December.
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