great significance for regions that are subject to heavy rainfall, but in parts of the country, particularly in the central regions, this kind of decline may be contributing to water scarcity and, consequently, keeping productivity stagnant. notably, pulses comprise a significant crop in these regions. in short, to add to all the other hindrances to productivity growth, long - term water availability will also potentially play a role. let me now wrap up the lecture by highlighting two key points made in the lecture and then drawing out some policy implications. first, we seem to be currently in a situation that resembles the food inflation episodes of the early and late 1970s in terms of magnitude and bis central bankers ’ speeches duration. in all three comparable episodes, including the most recent one, two important categories of food made significant contributions to inflationary pressures and their persistence. however, the key difference between the earlier episodes and the recent one is the pair of commodities involved. earlier, it was cereals and sugar, now it is proteins and fruits and vegetables. second, when prices are rising because demand is growing strongly while supply stagnates or fails to keep up, there is no alternative to curbing food inflation than raising supply rapidly. the current pressure on the prices of proteins and fruits and vegetables is clearly the outcome of this combination of circumstances. however, raising productivity quickly is itself a serious challenge, given the pressures emanating from both labour costs and, over longer horizon, what appears to be a structural reduction in the absolute amount of rainfall. i draw three policy implications from this analysis. first, the transition from an environment of persistent food inflation up until the 1970s to a series of more short - lived and less intense episodes in the 1980s and 1990s was the direct result of a set of policy interventions, which we collectively labelled the “ green revolution ”. these interventions, which combined price incentives, input subsidies, technological inputs and infrastructure investments, particularly in irrigation and, very importantly, buffer stocks, helped to raise and stabilize the productivity of cereal cultivation, as well as some other crops. over the years, cereals stopped contributing significantly to food inflation and, perhaps, this led to the belief that the food inflation problem had been solved for good. however, as we all, or should all, know, the story of development is a continuously evolving one. demands, for food as well as other products and services, change as consumers become more prosperous. sustaining the development momentum involves creating the capacity in the economy

also revisit the current provision of tenancy rights and promote rental housing by creating a balance between the interests of the landowner and the tenant. this will pave the way for supply of rental housing at affordable rents and act as an incentive for people to build houses for themselves and for others. reserve bank of india the supportive policy of the reserve bank of india and enabling fiscal regime has together contributed to the growth and expansion in the housing market. as regulators of the banking system, it is, however, important for the reserve bank of india to remain cautious against imprudent practices for short term gains. the current focus of its regulations is to ensure orderly growth of housing loan portfolios of banks. the policy orientation of the reserve bank, simply put, is to ensure and promote inclusive growth without adversely impacting the equilibrium of financial stability. reserve bank remains supportive of initiatives of the stakeholders as long as the programmes of affordable houses for all do not lead to structural damages to the financial eco - system. along with the government, sebi, reserve bank ’ s endeavors have been to develop a deep and vibrant debt market including for mortgage securities in a calibrated manner so as to ease financing pressures on the banks and also to provide an alternate avenue for raising long term resources. reserve bank has permitted investments by banks in mortgage backed securities subject to certain conditions. we are also constantly reviewing existing policy framework including those governing the priority sector lending to ensure that the bank credit to these sectors remain growing, smooth and uninterrupted. reserve bank has been using pre - emptive countercyclical provisioning and differential risk weights – supplemented by varying loan to value ( ltv ) ratios – to contain excessive credit growth to sectors which show signs of risk build - up. in order to prevent excessive leveraging, the reserve bank had advised banks in december 2010 that the ltv ratio should not exceed 80 per cent in respect of housing loans. however, for small value housing loans, i. e., housing loans up to ` 2 million ltv ratio was prescribed at a higher maximum level of 90 per cent. further, the risk weight for residential housing loans of higher amounts, i. e. ` 7. 50 million and above, irrespective of the ltv ratio, has been prescribed at 125 per cent to prevent excessive speculation in the high value housing segment. in the recent past, it was observed that some banks were following the practice of sanctioning housing loans at teaser