Urging India to move ahead with economic reforms to benefit from the changing global

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dynamics, top banker Uday Kotak has said it is time for the country to go for a tighter fiscal policy and ease its monetary policy stance.

"In the world, what we are seeing is an easing monetary policy and a move toward tighter fiscal policy," Kotak told PTI.

"But in India, we had a tighter monetary policy and an easier fiscal policy. It's time for us to change that equation," he added.

Speaking on the sidelines of the just-concluded World Economic Forum summit here, he also asserted that the Indian financial sector was in a much better state than what was perceived, but the country must move forward with reforms.

Kotak further said, "The real pain in the Indian financial sector at this stage is that the mood is worse than the reality and the reality is better than the mood. All the so-called pain is down to about 20-25 leveraged companies and outside that, the Indian financial sector is in good shape," he said.

Asked about his expectations from the Union Budget this year, the chief of Kotak Mahindra group told PTI he would like to see the Budget manage the fiscal deficit and would want the monetary policy to get more relaxed and the fiscal policy to get tightened.

Kotak said the RBI could again consider a CRR (Cash Reserve Ratio) cut in March and would start lowering interest rates in April. "I see a 100-200 basis points cut in the policy rate of the RBI in this calendar year," he added.