The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) monetary policy committee on Thursday kept the key lending rates unchanged while making a slew of other announcements, one pertaining to e-RUPI. The central bank announced the enhancement of cap under e-RUPI prepaid digital vouchers.

 

The RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said that the present cap of Rs 10,000 will be increased to Rs 1 lakh per voucher and to be used more than once (until the amount of the voucher is completely redeemed). The e-RUPI pre-paid digital voucher developed by the NPCI was launched in August 2021 and this single use cashless payment voucher has a cap of ₹10,000.

 

This will further facilitate the delivery of various government schemes to the beneficiaries more efficiently, Das added.

 

Along with this, the RBI has also extended the on-tap liquidity window for Emergency Health Services and Contact-intensive Sectors till June 30. The facilities were announced in May and June 2021 during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

Banks were given certain incentives for lending under the two schemes. On account of the continued uncertainties brought on by the third wave, the two schemes have now been extended from March 31, 2022 to June 30, 2022.

 

The bank has raised the Voluntary Retention Route (VRR) cap by Rs 1 lakh crore to Rs 2.5 lakh crore with effect from April 1, 2022. The scheme was introduced in March 2019 to facilitate long-term investment by Foreign Portfolio Investors in debt securities issued by the government and the corporates.

 

Meanwhile, the RBI retained the CPI inflation forecast for 2021-22 at 5.3 per cent but projected the CPI inflation for 2022-23 at 4.5 per cent. The central bank also projected India’s real GDP growth for FY 2022-23 at 7.8 per cent. Das forecasted the real GDP growth for 2022-23 Q1 at 17.2 per cent, Q2 and 7 per cent, Q3 at 4.3 per cent and Q4 4.5 per cent.