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Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday slammed government claims on financial health of the country and said that the Union government’s finances are not as rosy as is being made out to be is proved by the fact that the RBI has done it a favour and given it a big bonus.

 

With the Reserve Bank announcing a record dividend of Rs 2.87 lakh crore to the government, the Congress on Tuesday claimed that the Centre’s finances are not as rosy as is being made out to be is proved by the fact that the RBI has “done it a favour” and given it a big bonus.

 

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday announced a record dividend of Rs 2.87 lakh crore to the government for the year ended March 2026, providing a financial boost for the exchequer amid rising import bills and supply chain disruptions due to the West Asia conflict. The dividend is 6.7 per cent higher than Rs 2.69 lakh crore for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

 

The Centre has got a bonanza of an additional Rs 92,000 crore over and above what it would have got had the 2024/25 Contingency Reserve Buffer not been reduced, Ramesh said in  a post on X.  In a statement, the RBI has said its net income, before risk provision and transfer to statutory funds, aggregated Rs 3.96 lakh crore in FY26 as against Rs 3.13 lakh crore in FY25.The balance sheet of the Bank expanded by 20.61 per cent to Rs 91,97,121.08 crore as on March 31, 2026,” the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said.

 

RBI’s Central Board of Directors, at its meeting, reviewed the global and domestic economic scenario, including risks to the outlook, and also approved the dividend.According to the statement, the revised Economic Capital Framework (ECF) provides flexibility to maintain the Contingent Risk Buffer (CRB) between the range of 4.5 per cent and 7.5 per cent of the size of the balance sheet.

 

“Taking into consideration the current macroeconomic factors, financial performance of the Bank and maintenance of appropriate risk buffers, the Central Board decided to transfer Rs 1,09,379.64 crore towards the CRB for FY 2025-26 as against Rs 44,861.70 crore in the previous year,” it said.