The government is reportedly planning to loosen the inflation tolerance band for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which is due for a review in March next year. However, a new working paper by RBI Director Harendra Kumar Behera and Deputy Governor Michael Debabrata Patra has advocated maintaining the 4 per cent inflation target. In this context, our lead editorial argues that while it is important for the government to preserve one of the most important reforms in recent years, it is also critical for the central bank to gauge the inflation trajectory more accurately as monetary policy works with