Urjit Patel appointed as next RBI Governor

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.