RBI Deputy Governor Rajeshwar Rao Gets Monetary Policy Department As Michael Patra Set To Retire
The department of financial markets operations, which was under Patra, has been given to Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar.
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As Deputy Governor Michael Patra is set to retire, the Reserve Bank of India has allocated the monetary policy department to Deputy Governor Rajeshwar Rao, which will come into effect from Wednesday, the central bank said in a press release on Tuesday.
The development has come as Rao has been the senior-most person in the monetary policy department after Patra. In October, the government had extended Rao's term for another year, the second such extension after his original term ended in October 2023.
In January 2020, Patra was first appointed as deputy governor of the RBI and before that he served as an executive director of looking at the monetary policy committee and among others
The RBI has four deputy governors. Two are promoted from within and the other two are usually a commercial banker and an economist.
The department of financial markets operations, which was under Patra, has been given to Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar.
Patra's exit has come as the MPC has been reconstituted with the appointment of three new external members—Ram Singh, Saugata Bhattacharya and Nagesh Kumar—and the appointment of a new governor, Sanjay Malhotra, last year.
The government had advertised Patra's vacancy in early November with a deadline of November 30.
Apart from the monetary policy department and financial markets, Patra was also in charge of the forecasting and modelling unit, the financial markets regulation department (including market intelligence), the international department, the department of economic and policy research, statistics and information management, corporate strategy and budget and the financial stability unit.
Patra was also the only constant on the MPC since 2016, which has seen two RBI governors, Urjit Patel and Shaktikanta Das and six external members.
February's monetary policy will be keenly watched out for, with the new governor, three new external members and Rao as the new MPC member to assess the tone and strategies of the new clan.
They will be faced with challenges on the inflation front, a slowdown in economic growth, the persistent fall in the Indian rupee and liquidity.
