RBI MPC minutes show naysayers are worried about food and oil prices

Mumbai: Global crude oil prices have perturbed even the best of policymakers, as oil has been a slippery commodity to forecast. For a net importer like India, it skews the pitch for domestic inflation even more.

For the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) six-member monetary policy committee (MPC), oil prices and their impact was a key factor that pushed two members to vote against a cut in the policy repo rate. RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya and nominee member Chetan Ghate voted against an RBI rate cut on the basis of their concerns that rising crude oil prices have the ability to push up everything from headline inflation to inflation expectations.