Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to address RBI board on February 8

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to address the Reserve Bank of India's central board on February 8 and highlight key points of the Budget FY26, including significant income tax relief to boost demand.

The meeting would take place a day after the RBI announces the outcome of the Monetary Policy Committee meeting amid wide expectation of a rate cut by the central bank to boost moderating GDP growth.

The post-budget meeting has been scheduled for February 8 where the finance minister will address the board members and talk about announcements made in the Budget 2025-26 that strike a fine balance between growth and fiscal prudence, sources said. It is customary for the finance minister to address the RBI board after the budget.

Unveiling the Budget on February 1 in the Lok Sabha, Sitharaman said, "our endeavour will be to keep the fiscal deficit each year such that the central government debt remains on a declining path as a percentage of the GDP." The government has announced a new roadmap to reduce debt-GDP ratio to about 50 per cent by March 2031 from 57.1 per cent.
She proposed to bring down the fiscal deficit to 4.4 per cent of the GDP in FY26 from an estimated 4.8 per cent in the current financial year.