mumbai march 24 reuters  indias ratesetting committee has enough valid reasons to pause hikes when it meets next in april as risks to economic growth become more acute in the aftermath of the global banking crisis icici securities primary dealership said on friday market participants and analysts broadly expect a rate hike of 25 basis points bps on april 6 when the countrys monetary policy committee mpc ends its threeday meet the mpc has so far increased the policy repo rate by 250 bps since may in its fight against stubborn inflation which came in at 644 in february and has been above the higher end of the central banks target range of 26 for a large part of the fiscal year while we are sympathetic to the view that a rate hike could be needed to nudge real policy rates firmly into neutral territory we think riskmanagement considerations call for a pause in rate hikes a prasanna head of research at the primary dealership wrote earlier this week the us federal reserve raised rates by 25 basis points bps with policymakers saying they believed bringing down inflation may require only one more rate hike this year the hike was smaller than the 50 bps rise markets had expected from the fed before the banking turmoil in the us and europe the fed has now raised interest rates by a total 475 bps since march last year should the developments in us worsen simultaneously with a rate hike by the mpc then the rbi and mpc will not be able to reverse course quickly and financial conditions could tighten far more than intended prasanna said there is no need for a significant upward revision to the rbis inflation estimate of 53 for 202324 announced in the february policy he added the rbi would always have the option of raising rates in its june policy should the banking turmoil in us prove shortlived and domestic inflation continues to rise prasanna said the mpc is likely to retain its stance of withdrawal of accommodation in april even as it pauses rate action he added reporting by siddhi nayak editing by swati bhat and nivedita bhattacharjee