Inflation is a destructive disease, says Raghuram Rajan

New Delhi: Terming inflation as a “destructive disease”, Reserve Bank governor Raghuram Rajan on Thursday said there can be no trade off with growth and prices have to be brought down.

“Inflation is a destructive disease. Industrialists complain about high interest rate but we don’t have a choice but to keep interest at high rate because inflation is high at 8 per cent,” he said in the 8th RN Kao Memorial Lecture organized by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) here.

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While industrialists want an interest rate of about 5 per cent, a citizen would like the saving interest rate to be 10 per cent. The mismatch between industrialists demand and account holders is because of inflation.

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“The point is inflation is hitting the growth in the long run. There can be no trade-off. There is need to bring inflation down. Can we get inflation under control and get high growth,” he said.

But, Rajan said, the policy makers have to face the problem upfront and not keep postponing facing the problem.

“We have to examine the Urjit Patel committee report (asking RBI to calibrate monetary policy to retail inflation rate and not wholesale inflation as is policy presently). We cant push inflation under the carpet as a central banker. We have to deal with it,” he said.

PTI