Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday reacted to the criticism of the Reserve Bank of India’s decision to transfer a record Rs. 1.76 lakh crore from its surplus and reserves to the government, saying questioning the credibility of the central bank is ‘outlandish’ and ‘worrying’.
Addressing a press conference after meeting GST officials in Pune, she said, “This committee (Bimal Jalan Committee) is appointed by RBI, it had eminent experts in it, they gave a formula based on which the amount was arrived at, now any suggestions about credibility of RBI, therefore, for me seems a bit outlandish, considering the committee was appointed by the Reserve Bank themselves.”
The finance minister also hit out at Congres leader Rahul Gandhi over his ‘stealing from RBI’ remarks and said there is no point of using the ‘chor or chori’ word again as the public have already given him a befitting reply.
Finance Min Nirmala Sitharaman on Rahul Gandhi’s tweet on RBI: Whenever Rahul Gandhi raises things like ‘chor,chori,’ one thing comes to my mind, he tried his best ‘chor, chor,chori,’ but public gave him befitting reply. What’s the point of using the same words again? pic.twitter.com/qyccEFFfos
— ANI (@ANI) August 27, 2019
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On Monday, a press note from the RBI had said that it has decided “to transfer a sum of Rs 1,76,051 crore to the Government of India comprising Rs 1,23,414 crore of surplus for the year 2018-19 and Rs 52,637 crore of excess provisions identified as per the revised Economic Capital Framework (ECF) adopted at the meeting of the Central Board.”
(With agency inputs)