RBI chief: inflation should be brought down to 4-6 pct

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's inflation is still high and stubborn and should be reduced and held in a range of 4 to 6 percent, Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), said on Wednesday.

India's headline wholesale price index inflation had been above 7 percent from 2009 until January, when it fell to 6.62 percent from a year earlier. It is expected to have eased further to 6.54 percent in February, a recent Reuters poll showed.

"The Reserve Bank has to ensure that inflation is brought down to the threshold level and is maintained there," Subbarao said in the text of a speech to students in London, a copy of which was made available to journalists.

Despite continued high inflation, 32 of 40 analysts in a recent Reuters poll predicted the RBI would cut its key policy repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.50 percent at its review of monetary policy on Tuesday.

Subbarao also said a large fiscal deficit remains one of India's biggest macro-economic challenges, and credible fiscal consolidation is a necessary pre-condition for securing non-inflationary growth.

(Reporting by Shamik Paul and Suvashree Dey Choudhury in Mumbai; Editing by Tony Munroe)