India has a new Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor in Urjit Patel, a top Government official said.

52 year Patel was a RBI Deputy Governor prior to this elevation.

Patel has been appointed as RBI Governor for a period of three years with effect from September 4 this year.

This appointment has been made based on the recommendation of the Financial Sector Regulatory Appointments Search Committee (FSRASC) headed by Cabinet Secretary.

This committee had met twice to discuss all the possible names that can be considered for this assignment and had submitted a short panel of names to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC).

The incumbent RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan demits office on September 3.

It may be recalled that Patel was given a second-term of three years at the RBI this January.

Urjit Patel was Responsible for RBI’s report on switching to retail inflation targeting. He is also in charge of the crucial monetary policy department.

A PhD from Yale University and an M. Phil from Oxford University, he has also worked with the International Monetary Fund and has experience in energy and financial sectors too.

Prior to his appointment as the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank, Patel was Advisor (Energy and Infrastructure) at The Boston Consulting Group.

FCNR OUTFLOWS, INFLATION

Many bankers that BusinessLine spoke to see continuity of policies at the Reserve Bank of India and noted that Patel already enjoyed international acceptability.

Patel has been appointed as RBI Governor at a time when consumer price inflation was rearing its head and above the comfort zone of the RBI.

With the Government and RBI agreeing to inflation target of 4 per cent +/- 2 per cent, Patel will in the coming days be faced with some challenge on reining in inflation, they noted.

The other big challenge that Urjit Patel would face in the immediate months of his tenure as RBI Governor is the expected $ 24 billion NRI deposit outflows between September and December this year.

It is widely expected that this Foreign Currency Non Resident Deposit (FCNR) outflows during the September-December 2016 period could cause some stress in three markets -- US dollar liquidity, Indian Rupee liquidity and banking sector statutory liquidity.

However, many bankers and economists still feel that the FCNR outflows are likely to come and go without too much pain.

WORKED AT IMF

Patel has been Deputy Governor at the RBI in charge of monetary policy, economic research and financial markets operations since January 2013.

His first job after completing education was at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) where he worked on the India, US, Myanmar and Bahamas desks.

Patel was a consultant to the Finance Ministry for three years. He has also held other assignments in the public and private sectors.

He was Chairman of the Expert Committee to Revise and Strengthen the Monetary Policy Framework. He is currently a member of the Committee to Comprehensively Review the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) roadmap. He was a member of the Task Force on Direct Taxes (Kelkar committee).

Patel has authored (singly and jointly) about 40 scholarly publications/papers, and given lectures by invitation, in the areas of Indian macroeconomics, monetary policy, public finance, Indian financial sector, theory of international trade and regulatory economics.

Back to academics

It may be recalled that the incumbent RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan had on June 18 announced that he will move back to the world of academics once his three-year term comes an end on September 4. The Governor notified RBI staff about his decision in a message posted on the central bank’s website.

srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in

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