Acting prematurely would have hurt economy, says RBI Governor Das

Shaktikanta Das defends timing of rate hikes amid failure to meet inflation target

The Reserve Bank of India may have failed to achieve its legally mandated inflation target but tightening policy too early would have been "very costly" for the economy, said Governor Shaktikanta Das Wednesday.

Das, who spoke a day before an additional meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), said that efforts to safeguard growth often did not receive their deserved appreciation.

“Step back for a moment, pause for a moment, and think about…if we had started the process of tightening earlier, what would have been the counterfactual scenario? What you prevent in the process doesn’t get the kind of appreciation