Appointment is for three years
MUMBAI:Â The Centre has appointed Shaktikanta Das, a high profile IAS officer and member of the 15th Finance Commission, as the new governor of RBI following the dramatic resignation of Urjit Patel on Monday.
Though the market tossed up different speculations with regard to the appointment of a new governor for RBI, with many expressing views that the task before the government would be really onerous, the post was filled within 24 hours of the resignation of Patel.
Many view the appointment of Shaktikanta Das as too audacious a move on the part of the prime minister given the fact that Das was the secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the ‘infamous’ demonetization two years ago.
And moreover, the decision to appoint Das has been announced on a day when the Government has witnessed one of its most excruciating days since it took over, as its party, BJP was handed out a big drubbing in the state elections that took place in five states.
The immediate task before the new governor, as everyone knows, will be to mend the soured equations between the government and the central bank, which still has the former governor’s deputy in the key post.
That apart, sooner rather than later, the governor will have to take the issues such as independence of central bank, handling of PCA banks, RBI’s powers to regulate public sector banks, liquidity problems faced by NBFCs, the issue of sharing part of RBI reserves with the government, etc head on, more so because the government has only a few months with it before the general elections next year.
The appointments committee of the cabinet cleared Das’s appointment for a period of three years, according to an official order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training.
