RBI Working On Including Govt Bonds In Global Indices

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is in discussions with some institutions and efforts are being made in including government bonds in global indices as quickly as possible. The development is hoped to attract higher foreign inflows and bring in large passive investments from overseas to make more domestic capital available for industries.

Talking about it in an interview, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das told PTI, "That is work in progress. We have had our discussions with some institutions which maintain these global index...not possible to spell out a timeline, but it is a work in progress. Our effort will be to see that it is taken forward as quickly as possible. I don't want to give a timeline."

Earlier this month at the Budget presentation, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, "Certain specified categories of Government securities would be opened fully for non-resident investors, apart from being available to domestic investors as well."

The specified securities, which will be listed on the indices, will not have a lock-in requirement. Globally, there are some large institutional investors that track these indices, such as Bloomberg Barclays Emerging Market Bond index, for positional decisions on sovereign papers.

Further, with regard to the health of the shadow banking sector, Governor Das said RBI has been monitoring the top 50 NBFCs (non-banking financial companies) very closely, in fact, much more closely than anybody can imagine from outside.