The government on Saturday named deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Urjit Patel the next governor of the central bank after Raghuram Rajan demits office early next month.
"The Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) has approved the appointment of Dr. Urjit R. Patel as Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a period of three years w.e.f. 04.09.2016," said a government press note.
This ends weeks of speculation on who will succeed Rajan after he announced in June that he will not seek a second term. Patel, a graduate from Yale and Oxford universities, had earlier worked with the International Monetary Fund, the Boston Consulting Group, Reliance Industries and the Infrastructure Development Finance Corp. This is his second stint at the RBI.
AT the RBI, Patel headed the panel on Monetary Policy Framework, which, in January 2014, recommended that inflation should be the variable that should define the monetary policy framework. In fact, it has often been said that Patel has been Rajan’s lieutenant in combating inflation at the central bank.
Patel was among as many as 10 names that were reportedly in contention to replace Rajan, who is headed back to his teaching position at the Chicago University’s Booth School of Management.
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