Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS): India's key benchmark equity indices -- S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 -- rose further in the afternoon trade after the RBI kept the repo rate unchanged in its latest monetary policy meeting and maintained an accommodative stance going ahead.

The RBI's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) maintained the repo rate, or short-term lending rate, for commercial banks, at 4 per cent and stance accommodative to give a push to economic activity.

At 12.25 p.m., Sensex traded at 58,837 points, up 0.6 per cent or 371 points from the previous close, Nifty traded at 17,578 points, up 0.7 per cent or 114 points from the previous close.

Among sectoral indices, Nifty bank, financial services, media, metal, private bank and realty indices traded in the green.

"As we had expected, the MPC and RBI maintained a full status quo, on the stance, repo rate and reverse repo rate, with no change in the voting patterns of the six members. The tone of the policy review appeared sanguine on domestic inflation and cautious on growth, with a view to not sacrificing the latter in a futile attempt to control imported inflation," said Aditi Nayar, Chief Economist at ICRA.

Besides, India's GDP is expected to grow at 7.8 per cent in FY23, said RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das while announcing the outcome of the monetary policy meeting on Thursday.