The RBI has a number of policy options to draw upon to cushion the economic blow from the coronavirus pandemic. With a limited fiscal response so far, the Reserve Bank of India has taken the lead in providing virus relief to the economy. It has cut the interest rates by 75 basis points, injected more than $50 billion of liquidity into the financial system, imposed a moratorium on loan repayments and relaxed some regulations on bad loans.

“We expect another 75 basis points of cumulative repo rate cuts in 2020 and more unconventional policy measures to follow” said Sonal Varma, chief economist for India and Asia ex-Japan at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Singapore.

India’s combined budget deficit — which includes the shortfall for the federal government and states — may blow out to above 10 per cent of gross domestic product from about 6 per cent now, as revenue plunges. Authorities may be forced to borrow more to finance the additional spending and wider deficits.

The RBI may be able to help fund the budget deficit by directly buying government bonds. Although the practice has been banned by law since 2006, the government can use an ‘escape clause’ if the fiscal deficit is expected to be 0.5 percentage points above the targeted shortfall for the year. If the clause is invoked, the central bank would be allowed to participate directly in primary auctions for sovereign debt.While critics have warned that the move could lead to a downgrade in India’s credit rating to junk, proponents of the move say debt monetization is inevitable.

“The RBI has to support the primary and secondary market,” said Chakravarthy Rangarajan, a former RBI governor. “A large borrowing in a short time cannot be managed without monetizing.”

Traders are increasingly calling on the RBI to commit to a calendar for open market bond purchases to support market sentiment. The central bank has so far bought Rs 400 billion ($5.2 billion) of bonds, but analysts including Kotak Institutional Equities’ Suvodeep Rakshit are hoping for about Rs 5 trillion of purchases, including state government loans.

The central bank has also resorted to secondary market debt purchases to keep a leash on bond yields. It bought Rs 146.6 billion of debt over three days in the week ended April 10, according to official data released April 17.