What was special about the MPC minutes announced by RBI?

The minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) were announced on 18th May. The minutes had a clear mandate from the RBI governor Shaktikanta Das to front end the rate hikes. This would hopefully reduce the pressure in June policy. The theme of the MPC minutes was that it was inflation control above all else, and like in the US Fed, even at the RBI, it is inflation that has taken clear precedence over growth levers for now.

Among the 6 members of the MPC, only Jayanth Varma had called for a 50 bps rate hike but 40 bps was a fair consensus and approximately appealed to all the members. It also came out from the MPC minutes that there were more aggressive rate hikes in store in the June and August policies of around 100 bps. All members underlined the need to move urgently on rate hikes due to inflation, which only manifested in its worst for post February.