RBI to transfer Rs 30,307 cr to government

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India on Friday said that it has approved the transfer of Rs 30,307 crore as a surplus to the Union government for the 2021-22 accounting year. The contingency risk buffer has also been retained at 5.5 per cent. Contingency buffer is a specific provision made for meeting unexpected contingencies from exchange rate operations and monetary policy decisions. The RBI contributes a sizeable portion of its profit to the Contingency buffer.

Experts pointed out that the RBI surplus, an important source of revenue for the government, is much lower than the budgeted amount but healthy tax receipts could make up for the loss.

Aditi Nayar, chief economist at Icra, “The amount of surplus to be transferred by the RBI to the government appears to be modestly lower than the budgeted amount. However, the tax receipts are expected to substantially surpass the budgeted level, absorbing the impact of the former.”

The surplus/dividend transfer by the RBI is significantly lower than what it did last year. In 2020-21, the board had approved the transfer of Rs 99,122 crore as surplus to the government. This year’s surplus transfer is also lower than the Rs 73,948 crore in dividend the Centre has estimated in the Budget from RBI and financial institutions.