The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday decided to transfer Rs 99,122 crore as surplus to the exchequer. This will help the government channel more resources to combat the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic. 

The decision to transfer the surplus amount for the accounting period of nine months ended March 31, 2021 was taken at a meeting of the central board of the RBI held through video conferencing under the chairmanship of Governor Shaktikanta Das. The surplus is commonly called “dividend”. 

The accounting year of RBI is truncated as the central bank has aligned its July-June accounting year with the government’s April-March financial year. The RBI has followed a July-June financial year since 1940, when it moved away from a January-December financial year. 

The RBI also decided to maintain a Contingency Risk Buffer at 5.50 per cent in line with recommendations of the Bimal Jalan Committee report. The panel had prescribed a Contingency Risk Buffer range of 6.5 to 5.5 per cent for the RBI. 

According to a release of the central bank, the RBI board also reviewed the current economic situation, global and domestic challenges and recent policy measures taken by the Reserve Bank to mitigate the adverse impact of the second wave of COVID-19 on the economy. 

With the change in the Reserve Bank’s accounting year to April-March (from the earlier July-June), the board discussed the working of the RBI during the transition period of nine months (July 2020-March 2021). 

The RBI had transferred Rs 57,128 crore as surplus to the Central government for the accounting year 2019-20. A year before that (2018-19), the RBI had transferred Rs 1.76 lakh crore, which included Rs 1.23 lakh crore as dividend and Rs 52,637 crore excess provisions identified according to the revised Economic Capital Framework.