Urjit Patel

Valid criticism is something that we are open for, and we take it in the spirit in which it is given and try to improve ourselves.

It is easy and quick to fritter away gains regarding macroeconomic stability.

There are tens of thousands of bank branches and 4,000 currency chests. We need to be careful and try that this is a number which is not a mere estimate but a verified number both physically and in the accounting sense.

People were holding high denomination notes to keep tax unaccounted for money. Some sectors like real estate were using cash to avoid tax.

The RBI is interacting with the banks every day.

The staff members of all banks have worked very hard, and we all owe them our gratitude.

People have asked why the new currency introduced was different in size and thickness from the old. This is because the new currency has been designed to make it hard to counterfeit. When you are going to make a change of this magnitude, you need to get the best standards in place.

This is a once in a lifetime event. It is very rare to remove 86% of the currency in circulation in one go. The logistics of such an operation are mammoth.

Enhanced transparency has helped to reinforce the stability of India's financial system.

There is little room for complacency, and it is important to guard against sporadic volatility in financial markets.

Large credit guarantees also impede optimal allocation of financial resources and increase moral hazard.

Remonetisation has happened at a fast pace, and that was part of the plan that, subsequent to the withdrawal of the specified bank notes, our production plans and supply processes would ensure that the remonetisation happened as quickly as possible.

I think it is important that we should be on the side of keeping borders open with respect to trade and movement of factors of production.

The monetary policy committee could either keep rates constant, increase them, or bring them down. There are three options possible compared to when it is accommodative.

As many have pointed out, it is not clear that we need so many public sector banks. The system could be better off if they are consolidated into fewer but healthier banks.

One of the things that the public sector banks need to do is to raise private capital from the market and not rely on government largesse.

Divestment measures would improve overall banking sector health.

If one sees far, structural changes that come with temporary disruptions can be growth- and efficiency-augmenting in the medium to long term.

Very few countries grow at high rate if inflation is high and volatile. I think, in a way, we are doing our bit to support a higher growth rate, but on a durable basis.

There are some things that are under our control, and that is to ensure that we ourselves follow sound macroeconomic stability rules.

We should redefine the metric for effective lending, viz., prioritise loans to enterprises, which will generate more employment.

It is important to recognise near- and medium-term risks to the inflation outlook.

Yes, 4% is the government-mandated target to the MPC. The plus/minus 2 percentage-point upper and lower bands are the tolerance levels specified by the government. If we breach those for three consecutive quarters, we need to inform the government of why that happened and what we propose to do to bring inflation within the two bands.

The best way that a central bank can support growth on a durable basis is to ensure inflation is low, stable - there is financial stability - and that is the role that the central bank plays.

The materialisation of reforms in the form of rollout of the GST, the institution of Indian Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, and the abolition of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board should boost investor and investment confidence.