RBI's focus right now seems to be on ensuring enough liquidity: Upasna Bhardwaj

Roughly two-and-a-half lakh crore rupees have been injected into the banking system as financial assets are being roiled by this unprecedented lockdown but markets are absolutely unaffected. Even in the US when central bank did announce that massive rate cut there was absolutely no difference… it made no difference to the equity markets. The next day we saw Dow actually locked in lowest circuit; would you believe that maybe a simple rate cut, out of turn rate cut is not the answer?
Yes, absolutely. If we were to talk about the various measures that we have seen by the central bankers worldwide, we have not really seen much respite coming in the financial markets. This is somewhere because these have been aggressive measures by the global central banks. There are a lot of expectations in the domestic markets as well and that is why there has been a lot of talk about more actions from central bank. Today’s measure also reiterates the fact that the RBI is continuously ensuring that there is adequate liquidity that is available and that is what they are focussing on at this point in time. There are expectations of an inter-meeting rate cut but RBI has already indicated that they will wait and watch. My sense is they would go ahead with rate cuts. There is a need for a rate cut of 40 to 50 basis points in April or maybe prior to that. We will have to see how that goes. But at this point their focus clearly remains on ensuring there is adequate liquidity and that is where they are coming from.