The fine art of doing nothing

Most commentators and analysts have tended to view the Reserve Bank of India's mid-quarter monetary policy review of March 17 as a statement of the central bank's intentions and views on the economy. But the review, like many previous such reviews, can also be read as an indictment of public policy's failure to do anything meaningful to combat the problems faced by the nation — be it inflation, the lacklustre growth of capital goods and, of course, the pitiful state of our infrastructure and agriculture. One way of ‘reading' the abysmal passivity of New Delhi policy planners is to cast an eye over the string of endorsements of the RBI's actions from the chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council to the ever-articulate Deputy Chief of Planning Commission and, of course, Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee himself. According to the latter, the RBI's repo rate hikes of 25 basis points would moderate prices, though inflation could be “marginally” higher than earlier projections for the end of the fiscal. What the Finance Minister meant by this mind-bending logic is unclear, but what is not is the sorry state of the projections themselves that have emanated from New Delhi with unceasing regularity since last June.