Govt names Michael Patra as RBI dy guv
NEW DELHI: The government has appointed career central banker Michael Debabrata Patra as the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), a post lying vacant since the resignation of Viral Acharya in June last year.
The appointment of Patra, who has been working in RBI since 1985 in various capacities, was cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) for a three-year term, according to a government order.
Before elevation to the position of the deputy governor, Patra has been an executive director of the RBI as in-charge of its research department and one of the six members on the Monetary Policy Committee.
According to a government official, who wished not to be named, Patra, 59, is likely to take over the monetary policy portfolio that was handled by Acharya.
After the exit of Acharya, RBI has been functioning with three deputy governors—ns Vishwanathan, BP Kanungo and MK
Jain. The central bank, which is headed by governor Shaktikanta Das, can have a maximum of four deputy governors.
“Patra is the first career RBI economist to rise to the level of deputy governor in nearly three decades,” said Siddhartha Sanyal,
chief economist at Bandhan Bank in Kolkata. “The MPC and the RBI will continue to benefit from his wealth of experience and strong understanding of monetary policy.”
Patra, who has a PHD in Economics from Iit-bombay, was adviser in the department of economic analysis, and policy in-charge of international finance, money and banking.
His PHD thesis is on “The Role of Invisibles in India’s Balance of Payments: A Structural Approach”.
He did post-doctoral research in the area of financial stability from Harvard University. He has received professional training at the IMF Institute on Financial Programming and Policy and at the Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England.