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MUMBAI - The Reserve Bank of India's key lending rate was held steady at record lows on Thursday, but it surprised markets by leaving its key deposit rate unchanged against some economists' predictions of a hike to re-align it with short-term money market rates.

The monetary policy committee held the lending rate, or the repo rate, at 4%. The reverse repo rate, or the key borrowing rate, was also kept unchanged at 3.35%.

Respondents in a Feb. 2-4 Reuters poll were closely split on the timing of the repo rate rise, with slightly more than half, 17 of 32, expecting a 25-basis point increase to 4.25% in April.

The central bank has slashed the repo rate by a total of 115 basis points (bps) since March 2020 to soften the blow from the coronavirus pandemic and tough containment measures. The rate is now 250 bps below its level at the beginning of 2019, when the easing cycle began.