News: Urjit Patel – The man who replaced Raghuram Rajan as the new RBI Chief

Urjit Patel – The man who replaced Raghuram Rajan as the new RBI Chief

This is the first time that the RBI Governor was chosen as part of the Search Committee appointed by the Government.

In what can be termed as the biggest appointment of the year, Urjit Patel, the Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India since 2013 has been chosen to head India’s Central Banking institution right after Raghuram Rajan resigns on September 4.

This is the first time that the RBI Governor was chosen as part of the Search Committee appointed by the Government. The Financial Sector Regulatory Appointment Search Committee (FSRASC) headed by P K Sinha was set up last year and after a thorough scrutiny of the candidates-in-line, the committee drew up an extensive list of candidates and sent it to the Government a month ago.

“While the government took the final call on the governor, the committee provided that list, so the process has been much fairer and it is a shift from selection-based approach,” said Rajiv Kumar, senior fellow, Centre for Policy Research to HT. He is one of the three external FSRASC experts.

According to the media report, the committee had shortlisted the following five candidates – World Bank Chief Economist and Vice-President Kaushik Basu, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian and Representative of India and a few other neighbouring countries in IMF Subir Gokarn, besides Urjit Patel. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in consultation with finance minister Arun Jaitley decided on Patel.