New Delhi, Nov 4 (IANS): Having failed to keep inflation within its tolerance limit of up to 4 per cent for the past three quarters, the monetary policy committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) met on Thursday to draft its response to the government on its inability to do so.

According to a statement issued by the central bank, the MPC's meeting was held "to discuss and draft the report to be sent to the Government by the RBI under the provisions of Section 45ZN of the RBI Act, 1934 and Regulation 7 of RBI MPC and Monetary Policy Process Regulations, 2016".

The meeting was chaired by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das and all MPC members, namely -- Michael Debabrata Patra, Rajiv Ranjan, Shashanka Bhide, Ashima Goyal and Jayanth R. Varma.

Section 45ZN of the RBI Act requires the MPC to send a letter to the government if the central bank fails to meet its inflation mandate.

It is basically an explanation why RBI failed to keep the retail inflation below the tolerance limit.

Retail inflation has been consistently more than 6 per cent since the past nine months.