How RBI set up war-room in just one day amid coronavirus outbreak

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank is virtually being run from a war-room at a city facility manned by just around 90 critical staff as the nation’s monetary authority works to insulate the financial system from disruptions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The facility, operational from March 19 as part of the business contingency plan (BCP), was up and running in 24 hours of the central bank taking a decision to this effect, according to an official.

The war-room is in fact manned by 90 most critical staff from the Reserve Bank, 60 key personnel from its 600-people strong workforce from its external vendors and around 70 facility staff.

The operation is so controlled for the sake of security and health of the personnel as also of the system that the BCP manual allows only half of the 90 staff to be present at any given time and the rest are on standby.

“This is the first of its kind BCP implementation by any central bank in the world and is also the first in our history because even during the World War II we did not have any such facility,” the official from the Reserve Bank told PTI.

The most critical functions that the war-room handles are debt management, reserve management and monetary operations.

Under the BCP, other data centres of the RBI run cr