Pranab terms RBI's move to raise key rates appropriate

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today described RBI’s move to increase the short-term lending and borrowing rates to contain double-digit inflation as “appropriate”.

“So far as interest rate is concerned, there is 25 basis points increase in repo and reverse repo rates... It is appropriate, welcome measure,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an Assocham conference. The steps taken by the central bank, he added, “will be subsumed in the new policy statement which will be issued in the later part of the month by RBI.” On whether there could be further hike in the monetary policy review which is due later this month, he said, “The RBI board will come up with its policy on July 27. Let us wait till then.”

No rollback in fuel prices: FM
The government would not roll back the recent fuel price hike, said Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee here today. “There is no question of a rollback in fuel prices,” Mukherjee said today. The government had recently de-regulated state-subsidised petrol prices and raised prices of other fuels in late June. While petrol prices went up by Rs 3.50 a litre, diesel prices did so by Rs 2 a litre, kerosene by Rs 3 a litre and cooking gas by Rs 35 per cylinder. Opposition parties have called for a nation-wide strike on July 5.