RBI pussy-footing on inflation, says ex-governor

Former Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Savak Soharab Tarapore has said the "soft and calibrated monetary policy measures" taken by the central bank to tackle inflation have failed and has called for stern steps to tackle price rise, which has become a national crisis.

"There is no alternative to unequivocal and unswerving policy action to tackle inflation that has now become a major structural problem. The efforts of the RBI in controlling inflation have failed so far," he told a function organised by research agency Dun & Bradstreet here over the weekend.

Warning that the government and RBI preoccupation with high growth at the cost of inflation will be counterproductive and disastrous, he called for "a proactive, forward-looking monetary policy to batten down inflation and not the baby-step measures as it has been recently doing.