Composition of MPC to be decided in coming months

Discussions on setting up the recently announced Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) are yet to begin and will take place over the next few months, Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian said today.
"Discussions on the Monetary Policy Committee will take place in the context of change in the RBI Act. Those things will happen in the months ahead... Haven't begun discussions on the monetary policy committee," Subramanian said at a press conference here.
Asked whether the RBI Governor will get veto power in MPC, the CEA said: "It's too premature to comment on that."
Subramanian said the government and RBI have codified shared concern about inflation, shared assessment in the monetary policy framework in consistent with the Urjit Patel Committee Report.

In a bid to bring down prices, RBI in an agreement with government has committed to using monetary tools to cut inflation to pre-decided levels.
The Monetary Policy Framework Agreement binds the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to using monetary policy tools including fixation of interest rates, to bring down inflation to less than 6 per cent by January 2016 and to around 4 per cent by March next year.

Signed on February 20, the objective of monetary policy will be to "primarily maintain price stability while keeping in mind the objective of growth".
"The Reserve Bank will aim to bring inflation below 6 per cent by January 2016. The target of financial year 2016-17 and all subsequent years shall be four per cent with a band of (+/-) 2 per cent," the agreement had said.

To give effect to the agreement, the government will amend the RBI Act some time in the next fiscal.
In the Union Budget 2015-16, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said a monetary policy framework would be put in place to keep inflation below 6 per cent.
"To ensure that our victory over inflation is institutionalised and hence continues, we have concluded a monetary policy framework agreement with the Reserve Bank of India. The framework objective is to keep inflation below 6 per cent and we will move to amend the RBI Act this year and provide for monetary policy committee," he had said.