RBI governor Subbarao to take additional charge of monetary policy portfolio
12 Jun 2009
With two posts of deputy governor falling vacant, the Reserve Bank has reallocated portfolios and governor D Subbarao is said to take over key portfolios that were being handled by Rakesh Mohan who relinquished office on Wednesday. Mohan demitted office to take up a teaching assignment at Stanford Univesity.
One of the key portfolios monetary policy will now be taken over by Subbarao.
The second post of deputy governor fell vacant on V Leeladhar's superannuation a few months ago. The post will be taken over by Punjab National Bank chairman and managing director KC Chakrabarty on Monday.
Chakrabarty would take charge of at least eight divisions – customer services, administration and personnel management, IT, payment and settlement system, human resources, Rajbhasha, rural planning and credit and urban banking.
In addition to monetary policy, Subbarao will also take charge of the department of economic analysis and policy, department of statistics and information management.
Usha Thorat and Shyamala Gopinath, the two other Dgs, would continue to hold charge of their existing portfolio. Usha Thorat currently looks after the department of banking operations and development, banking supervision, expenditure and budgetary control, currency management, deposit insurance, inspection and premises.
Shyamala Gopinath is presently handling communication, government and bank accounts, external investment and operations, non banking supervision, financial markets, foreign exchange, internal debt management and legal department.
A decision on the replacement of Rakesh Mohan is awaited.
It took six months for the government to identify Leeladhar's successor and not committee has been set up to look for Mohan's replacement.
According to sources, two strong contenders for the post are Arvind Virmani, chief economic adviser to the finance ministry and Ashok Kumar Lahiri, Asian Development Bank executive director.
Another contender said to be in the race is Raghuram Rajan, honorary economic adviser to prime minister Manmohan Singh.
Meanwhile the CMD post at Punjab National Bank, which will fall vacant with Chakrabarty moving to RBI, could go to Punjab and Sind Bank chairman and managing director RP Singh. Other contenders for the post are said to be Alok Misra, chief of Oriental Bank of Commerce, and SK Goel of Kolkata-based UCO Bank.
