Government reappoints Urjit Patel as Deputy Governor of RBI for a second term

The Union Government has reappointed Dr Urjit Patel as Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a second three-year term.
As Deputy Governor of RBI, Dr Patel looks after Monetary Policy, Economic Policy Research, Deposit Insurance, Statistics and Information Management and Right to Information etc.

About Urjit Patel

• By profession Urjit Patel is an eminent economist, consultant and banker.
• He has two decades of rich experience across sectors including financial, energy and infrastructure sectors.
• He had received his doctorate in Economics from Yale University in 1990 and is a graduate of the University of London and Oxford.
• Between 1990 and 1995, he has worked with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) covering the India, US, Bahamas and Myanmar desks of it.
• For first time, he was appointed as the Deputy Governor of RBI in January 2013 for three year term.
• He had headed committee to review the monetary policy framework and had proposed monetary policy committee to set interest rates (currently solely decided by the RBI governor).
• It also had recommended targeting consumer inflation to control volatile prices by shifting the current focus away from wholesale prices.
• Between 2000 and 2004, he had worked closely with several central and state government high level committees such as, Task Force on Direct Taxes (TFDT), Advisory Committee (on Research Projects and Market Studies) and Competition Commission of India (CCI) etc.

Comment

• The re-appointment of Mr Patel assumes significance as in recent past, none of the deputy governors got a second term. If he serves the full three-year second term, he could become the longest serving deputy governor of RBI.

Deputy Governors of RBI

• RBI has four Deputy Governors. Two are from outside, a commercial banker and an economist and two others are promoted from within its ranks.
• Deputy Governor of RBI can be appointed for a period of five years or till the age of 62, whichever is earlier.
• Current other three Deputy Governors of RBI are:R. Khan, S.S. Mundra and R. Gandhi.

Month: Current Affairs - January, 2016