MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India is widely  expected to leave the repo rate, at which it lends to commercial banks, unchanged at 7.50 percent at its first bi-monthly monetary policy review of the new fiscal.

The scheduled review, coming after the first full budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proposing changes in the RBI Act, follows two previous unscheduled rate cuts since January which brought the repo rate down from 8 percent by 50 basis points to the existing one. The interest rate cuts this year came after nearly two years.

The banks' cash reserve ratio that determines their lending power, which has been at 4 percent since early 2013, is also expected to remain unchanged.

At the time of the last unscheduled cut, the RBI said that "given low capacity utilization and still-weak indicators of production and credit off-take, it is appropriate for RBI to be pre-emptive in its policy action to utilize the available space for monetary accommodation".

Announcing the rate cut in January, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan  said that "the key to further easing are data that confirm continuing disinflationary pressures and sustained high quality fiscal consolidation".

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