The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) under the Chairmanship of Shaktikanta Das may have maintained status quo in the sixth and last bimonthly money policy of the year on Thursday, but some of the policy measures announced by the central bank looked like follow-up to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s February 1 Union Budget The money policy contained measures for real estate, public sector banks and MSMEs The central bank said it would not downgrade commercial real estate loans, if the delay is genuine. It will be in line with the treatment accorded to other project loans for the non-infrastructure sector. The central bank also said it would issue revised regulations for housing finance companies (HFCs ) by the end of February. Till such time, HFCs will continue to comply with the directions and instructions issued by NHB, it said.“RBI delivered Budget Part-II in the form of lowering costs for MSMEs and bringing some life into realty , wherein loans to commercial real estate will be considered as standard (projects which are just about to complete but are stuck due to last mile funding gaps),” said Jimeet Modi, Founder and CEO, Samco Securities.Modi further said RBI indeed used all its might to force banks to lower interest rates to induce transmission for the benefit of end users, which it has partly achieved. New loans are now 69 basis points cheaper and old loans 13 basis points less costly after a total of 135 bps rate cuts in 2019.Shares of housing finance players including L&T Finance Holdings, Piramal Enterprises, LIC Housing Finance and HDFC rallied 1-10 per cent in Thursdays trade. On the other hand, the benchmark BSE Sensex ended the session 163 points higher 41,306.Shares of select banks climbed up to 5 per cent, after RBI announced measures to offer relief on retail loans for automobiles, residential housing and loans micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Shares of Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Indian Bank, Punjab National Bank gained 3-5 per cent, while stocks of real estate players like Brigade Enterprises, Sobha, Indiabulls Real Estate advanced up to 4 per cent.On policy rate, RBI opted for status quo after the Union Budget for 2020-21 slipped on fiscal deficit target amid signs of hardening of inflation in an uncertain global environment.The six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) headed by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das kept repo rate unchanged at 5.15 per cent for the second meeting in a row, but maintained an accommodative policy stance, which implied a bias in favour of rate cuts to boost growth.“In a major relief to the real estate sector and further complementing many of the previous initiatives by the government in 2019, RBI has decided to extend the restructuring of project loans by a year. Loans for projects that have been delayed for reasons beyond the control of their promoters have been extended by another one year without downgrading the asset classification. This aligns with the treatment accorded to other project loans for the non-infrastructure sector. This is a big move and will bring the much-needed relief to the cash-starved real estate sector - and to both developers and the HFCs from the liquidity perspective,” said Anuj Puri, Chairman, ANAROCK Property Consultants.He said the move would help reduce time for maintaining and managing cash flows for cash-strapped developers and help them complete several stuck projects. That said, it would not address the other main issue prevailing in the realty sector – that of continuing low demand.