The Reserve Bank of India does not intend to transfer any additional dividend to the government this financial year, Governor Urjit Patel indicated while speaking with the press after the monetary policy announcement today.
We always share the dividend with the government and we have already done that for this year. That’s something that is done in a mechanical way and it will continue to do so going forward. Our fiscal year, as you know, is from July to June, so we are halfway through our current fiscal year.Urjit Patel, RBI Governor
Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg had told BloombergQuint in an interview that the government still expects the RBI to transfer additional dividend this year, as it stares at a revenue shortfall. The government had set a “Rs 40,000-42,000 crore” dividend target looking at the central bank’s surplus revenue, he had said.
RBI’s dividend for 2017-18 halved to Rs 30,659 crore from the previous year on printing of new currency notes after the demonetisation of high value currency notes in November 2016. The government has already breached the fiscal deficit target for this fiscal. It had sought an additional dividend of Rs 13,000 crore from the RBI to bridge the gap.
In Budget 2018-19, the government estimated a dividend of Rs 54,817 crore from the RBI, nationalised banks and financial institutions.
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