RBI likely to vote for growth in its policy review: Mayaram

New Delhi: With inflation in manufactured items showing signs of decline, the Finance Ministry on Thursday expressed the hope that RBI will reduce key interest rate in its monetary policy review next week.

"We believe that the RBI will do a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of the economy and take the right decision and we hope it will vote for growth. I am happy with what he (RBI Governor D Subbarao) has said," Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram said.

Industry is demanding a cut in repo rate to help revive India's sagging GDP growth that hit decade's low of 4.5 percent in the third quarter of 2012-13.

The Secretary said the rise in Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based inflation is largely due to food inflation.

"But if you remove the element of food from the calculation, then actually it has come down," Mayaram added.

He, however, said food inflation is "worrisome" and it is necessary to look at it.

As per the WPI data, inflation in manufactured goods has moderated to 4.51 percent in February against 5.82 percent in the same month last year.

In his address at London School of Economics yesterday, Subbarao had said that there "has been some very welcome, although much delayed, action on correcting both the CAD and the fiscal deficit over the last six months".

"More notably, the recent budget has firmly embraced fiscal responsibility by restraining the fiscal deficit next year consistent with the road map recommended by the Kelkar Committee," he had said.

Most analysts are expecting the RBI to do a trade off with growth with at least a 0.25 percent cut in the short-term lending rate in the March 19 policy meet.

PTI