RBI starts making public minutes of its board meetings

The RBI has started making public minutes of its board meetings as part of its exercise to enhance transparency regarding its functioning and also to obviate the need of asking for such details under the Right to Information Act (RTI Act), the central bank said.

To begin with, the central bank shared the minutes of meeting of its Central Board of Directors held in Chandigarh in October last year, though it blacked out certain portions.

In a statement, the RBI said it has been, over the years, taking steps to enhance transparency with regard to its functioning.

"The minutes of the meetings of the RBI's Central Board of Directors (Central Board) have evinced considerable public interest and some of these have been shared with persons who sought them under the Right to Information Act 2005 (RTI Act)," it said.

As a measure of further enhancing public awareness, the RBI said it has been decided to place the minutes of the meetings of the Central Board on the RBI's website as per the RTI Act, "after appropriately severing information that is permitted to be severed as per the Act".

It further that in future, the minutes will be placed on the website within two weeks from the date of its confirmation in the next meeting of the Central Board and on being signed by the chairman in the same meeting.

As per the minutes of October meeting chaired by Governor Shaktikanta Das, the Board discussed in detail the situation in the financial sector with special focus on the regulatory and supervisory architecture of commercial and cooperative banks as also NBFCs.

The 579th meeting the Board took up a host of issues, including sitting fees payable to directors of the board and members of the local RBI boards.