The inside story of RBI board marathon meeting

New Delhi [India], Nov 23 (ANI): The board meeting of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has ended but people who follow the Ministry of Finance and the central bank and also keep an eye on every development of the Mint Street and North Block are curious to know that what all happened in the nine-hour marathon meeting that took place at the RBI office in Mumbai on Monday.

However, this story will give you a complete picture of the mood of the board meeting and how the top notch reacted in that meeting where the nation was assuming that an unhealthy spat between the RBI and the central government would widen further.

On the condition of anonymity, one of the Board Members told ANI, "We attended the Monday meeting with complete preparation and were not tensed. It was an intellectual debate and meeting was intellectually stimulating."

He further revealed that out of nine long hours of meeting, seven hours were spent on presentation only.

One of the sources aware of the development said, "The board meeting was chaired by the RBI Governor (Urjit Patel) and attended by four deputy governors. One of the deputy governors NS Vishwanathan gave the presentation on behalf of the RBI."

He said, "The presentation was made on Basel norms, MSME sector and Economic Capital framework. The RBI presentation was purely on the database."

From the government side, Secretaries Department of Economic Affairs SC Garg and Department of Financial Affairs Rajiv Kumar gave the presentations.

The government nominees' presentation covered the overall current situation of the banking system, Non Performing assets (NPAs), stressed assets and some sectoral issues like MSME's etc.

The RBI's representatives had their own views and queries on the presentation made by the government nominees. Similarly, the government nominees shared their own views and queries on the presentation made by the Deputy Governor.

Another source told ANI, "After the presentation, discussion took place pointwise."

On being asked whether there was any kind of tension or a heated argument between the Centre and the RBI representative, he said, "After seven hour of high-level presentation, we discussed our agenda and finally after two hours the meeting ended in very cordial manner."

"We can say that the speculation in media which were going on from last 15 to 20 days will be stopped now, but we can't say that differences are over. The decisions which were taken were commonly agreed, but on some issues like Prompt Corrective Action (PCA), economic capital, where a committee will take decision there are still some differences," the source said.

"What the committee will say it will depend on them but it has best gone into peace until the next board meeting in December," the sources added.