The Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy Committee has kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.25%, even as it raised the reverse repo rate to 6% from 5.75%. 

The bank said that the decision of the committee is consistnt with a neutral stance of monetary policy in consonance with the objective of achieving the medium term target for retail inflation of 4% within a band of +/-2%, while supporting growth.

The central bank projects inflation to average 4.5% in the first of 2017-18 and 5% in the second half. Growth is projcted to be 7.4% in the year, up from 6.7% last year.

The bank is of the view that the pace of remonetisation will continue to trigger a rebound in discretionary consumer spending, saying significant improvement in transmission of past policy rate reductions into banks’ lending rates post demonetisation should help encourage both consumption and investment demand of healthy corporations.

Meanwhile, back in stock market, realty stocks are hogging the limelight. Mirroring strong buying in key stocks in that space, the BSE Realty index has risen 2.6%. Bank and automobile stocks are off the day's lows. Capital goods stocks are finding some support.

FMCG, healthcare, consumer durables and metal stocks are weak. Oil stocks are trading higher.

The Sensex is down 51.33 points or 0.17% at 29,922.91, while the Nifty50 is down 14.15 points or 0.15% at 9251.00.

Among the stocks in BSE Realty index, DLF is up 4.75%, Unitech is gaining 3.7%, Prestige Estates is up 2.7% and Godrej Properties is adding 2.5%. Oberoi Realty, HDIL, Sobha and Indiabulls Real Estate are gaining 1.3% - 2%, while Phoenix and Omaxe are up 1% and 0.7%, respectively.