RBI Governor royally ignored by government, says Chidambaram

Congress leader P Chidambaram on Wednesday targeted the BJP-led government over the RBI's 2019-20 annual report and said it is difficult to find any other instance when a central bank Governor is so "royally ignored" by the Centre.

The former Finance Minister, who made a series of tweets, said the RBI Governor should send multiple copies of the RBI's Annual Report, in English and Hindi, to the PM and to every Minister in the cabinet.

"RBI Governor should send multiple copies of the RBI's Annual Report, in English and Hindi, to the PM and to every Minister in the Cabinet. I cannot find any other central bank governor who is so royally ignored by the government. I wonder if the FM and the Governor speak to each other," Chidambaram said.

"Mr Governor, my sympathies are with you. You can wake up a sleeping person, how do you wake up a person pretending to be asleep?" he added.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday said that declining capacity utilisation, weakening of consumption demand and overhang of stressed balance sheets are restraining new investments and called for wide-ranging reforms to regain losses due to COVID-19 crisis and return to the path of sustainable economic growth.

The corporate tax cut of September 2019 has been utilised in debt servicing, a build-up of cash balances and other current assets rather than restarting the capital expenditure cycle, it said.

"These underlying developments suggest that the appetite for investment is anaemic and in need of more reforms," said the central bank in its 2019-20 annual report.

( With inputs from ANI )

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