A day after Urjit Patel resigned as RBI Governor citing “personal reasons”, the government swiftly went on to appoint Shaktikanta Das as the new RBI Governor.
Shaktikanta Das has served as a top bureaucrat in the Finance Ministry and was the key face of the government during demonetization. He is now the 25th Governor of RBI and is appointed for a period of 3 years.
Unlike his predecessors Urjit Patel and Raghuram Rajan who were economists, Das is a 1980-batch IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre. He is a post-graduate in history from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.
He served as Economic Affairs Secretary from 2015 to 2017 and was a member of the Fifteenth Finance Commission of India and India’s Sherpa to the G20.
Das caught the headlines with his clear-cut pro-demonetization stance. Also last year, Das criticized the methodology of global rating agencies and sought a sovereign rating upgrade.
Das is set to step in at a time when the feud between RBI and the central government is out in the open.
Important Roles played by him in the past are-
- Has been a crucial part of the budget divisions both at the Centre and his state.
- As a Revenue Secretary, he played a vital role in GST implementation.
- As the Economic Affairs Secretary, he drafted the Insolvency Code, amended the RBI Act to set up a Monetary Policy Committee. He also suggested the abolition of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board.
- He served as a member of 15th Finance Commission
- He was also a member of India’s Sherpa at G20 Summit.