Bs Jury

A K Purwar

Chairman, State Bank of India

The twin levellers available to central banks for influencing monetary and credit policy are cash reserve ratio and bank rate. The Reserve Bank has used both.

The guiding principle appears to be the realignment of interest rates in line with global trends. The banks have thus to improve productivity and lower transaction costs.

There is a well placed need to increase transparency in fixing the prime lending arte. However, the perception of various banks of the components underlying the PLR may not be uniform.

Some steps have been taken to address this. Enabling provisions have been made for increasing credit flow to rural housing, agriculture and infrastructure.

 

S B Mathur

Chairman, LIC

The policy as it gives long-term investors such as insurance companies an assurance that there will be no further changes in interest rates at least for the next six months.

The RBI governor