Despite spike in RBI's costs, govt likely to get extra dividend for FY18

The central bank's cost for printing notes rose by a staggering 135 per cent, provisions for transfer to contingency funds were up 14 times

The Centre is likely to receive additional dividend from the Reserve Bank of India for the current financial year, 2017-18, according to media reports.

A December 2017 report in the Economic Times has reported that the government was considering asking RBI to transfer an extra Rs 130 billion lying with it, in order to build a corpus for the recapitalisation of public sector banks.

An amount of Rs 306.59 billion transferred by the apex bank to the Centre for the previous fiscal, made up 99.99 per cent of RBI's gross income less total expenditure for the 12 months ending June 30. The central bank follows a June account closure

The amount transferred this year was less than half the Rs 658.76 billion paid by RBI in 2015-16, the ET report said. This was because the cost for printing notes rose by a staggering 135 per cent, while provisions for transfer to contingency funds were up nearly 14 times.