RBI Reviews Economic Capital Framework, Dividend to Govt

Mumbai, May 15 (PTI) The Reserve Bank's Central Board on Thursday reviewed its Economic Capital Framework (ECF) which is the basis for deciding the surplus transfer or amount of dividend to be given to the government.

The RBI had paid a record Rs 2.1 lakh crore dividend to the government for 2023-24. The payout was Rs 87,416 crore for 2022-23.

The dividend payout is expected to be higher this time, the decision about which is likely to be taken at the next meeting of the Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India to be held on May 23.

"The 615th meeting of the Central Board of Directors of Reserve Bank of India was held today in Mumbai under the Chairmanship of Sanjay Malhotra, Governor. As part of the agenda, inter alia, the Board reviewed the Economic Capital Framework (ECF) of the Reserve Bank of India," RBI said in a statement on Thursday.

The transferable surplus is determined on the basis of the ECF adopted by the Reserve Bank on August 26, 2019, as per recommendations of the Bimal Jalan-headed Expert Committee to Review the extant Economic Capital Framework of the RBI.

The Committee had recommended that the risk provisioning under the Contingent Risk Buffer (CRB) be maintained within a range of 6.5 to 5.5 per cent of the RBI's balance sheet.

The Union Budget for the current fiscal has projected a dividend income of Rs 2.56 lakh crore from the Reserve Bank and public sector financial institutions.

The 615th Board meeting was attended by deputy governors M Rajeshwar Rao, T Rabi Sankar, Swaminathan J, and Poonam Gupta.

Other Directors of the Central Board – Ajay Seth, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Nagaraju Maddirala, Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Satish K Marathe, S Gurumurthy, Revathy Iyer, Sachin Chaturvedi, Venu Srinivasan, Pankaj Ramanbhai Patel and Ravindra H Dholakia – also attended the meeting.