RBI aims to get inflation down to 5 pct by end of fiscal 2016-17, says Rajan

Reserve Bank of India(RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan on Tuesday asserted that the central bank aims to get the inflation rate down to five percent by the end of fiscal 2016-17.

"We have said that we aim to get inflation down to five percent by the end of fiscal 2016-17. We had announced four percent by end of fiscal 2017-18 in the April policy of this year. So, we have refined that by saying that the intermittent would be five percent by 2016-17 end," Rajan said while announcing the fourth bi-monthly monetary policy for 2015-16.

"The average inflation rate for this year is five percent. Of course, we have benefitted from some good external factors, but, we also had a difficult monsoon. So, we have to do a little more to get us to five percent by next year. We think it's feasible, after all, we came down two percentage points since last year," Rajan added.

Rajan also announced a cut in the Repo Rate by 50 bps to 6.75 percent, while the Cash Reserve Ratio(CRR) remains unchanged at four percent.