NEW DELHI: The much-anticipated RBI board meeting under new Governor Shaktikanta Das took no major decision on liquidity or PCA norms review today.The board, which reviewed the current economic situation, was of the view that the governance framework needs to be examined further.ETNow reported that the next board meet will be held in January and will be timed according to the Union Budget.The board is learnt to have discussed liquidity issues extensively and what actions should be taken to improve balance sheet of lenders.
It also took up issues related to currency management and deliberated on capital infusion required for the system.The new Governor acquainted himself with various issues on the table, the sources said, adding that provisioning for December and March quarters also featured in the talks.This was the first RBI board meet with Das at the helm.The 18-member board also discussed the draft report on the trends and progress of banking (2017-18), the RBI said.In the previous meeting held on November 19, which lasted over 10 hours, the board had decided to constitute a committee of experts to fix an appropriate level of economic capital framework (ECF) for the central bank which would decide how much contingency reserves it should hold any given time and the membership and terms of reference of which will be jointly determined by government and RBI.Nothing has officially progressed on the matter as the government and RBI are not yet on same page on the name of the chairman of the six-member panel.The issue of transfer of RBI's excess reserves, which stood at Rs 9.43 trillion as of June 2018, to the government has been one of the contentious issues between the government and the central bank for a long time and also one of the key reasons for the sudden exit of Patel.At the last meet, the RBI board had also decided to refer the issue of relaxing the PCA framework-- under which are 11 of the 21 state-run banks--to the board of financial supervision of the central bank.It can be noted that some of the new government nominees to the RBI board have been demanding that the central bank should be run by the board and not just by the management.On Thursday evening, Coal Minister Piyush Goyal also turned his guns at RBI over this issue and alleged that the RBI management--the governor and the four deputies-- arbitrarily decided on the PCA framework, keeping the board in the dark.If the board votes for a board-driven RBI, then that will be the biggest blow to the operational independence of the central bank, say many central bank watchers.(With inputs from PTI)