Historically, Industrial and Export Credit Department (IECD) laid down detailed policy prescriptions for lending operations of banks. This involved formulating inventory and receivable norms for various industries, issuance of guidelines on matters such as Maximum Permissible Bank Finance (MPBF), consortium arrangement and scrutiny of credit proposals under the Credit Authorisation Scheme (CAS)/Credit Monitoring Arrangement (CMA). The stance of the Reserve Bank's policy now is to move away from micro regulation and to undertake only macro monitoring. IECD thus withdrew from prescribing detailed lending norms for banks. It now:

• Formulates macro level policies in regard to credit to non-SSI industries, export, housing and infrastructure development, designed to speed up the credit delivery system of banks.

• Formulates policy regarding bank credit for rehabilitation of sick/weak non-SSI units.

• Authorises food credit limits for Food Corporation of India and various State Governments and limits for procurement of oilseeds and pulses to National Agricultural Co-operative Marketing Federation of India Limited and procurement of jute to Jute Corporation of India Ltd., for drawing credit from a consortium of banks.

• Acts as a nodal department for monitoring the activities of National Housing Bank and Infrastructure Development Finance Company Ltd.

• Monitors the flow of credit to industries, housing and export sectors through a reporting system.

• Holds meetings of the Export Advisory Committee where members are banks and export promotion organisations, to deliberate on finance related and exchange control related issues affecting exporters.