Former bureaucrat Das RBI Governor

Former bureaucrat, Shaktikanta Das, who presided over the post-demonetisation normalisation of the economy, was on Tuesday named the new governor of the RBI for a fixed three-year term.

Das, 61, replaces Urjit Patel, who shocked the establishment and markets by announcing his exit from the central bank on Monday.

For a career bureaucrat, who was equally at ease with three different finance ministers, the journey from North Block to Mint Street has often seen Das adopting a non-confrontational approach and building consensus on tackling tricky issues.

Das, a 1980-batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer, who retired as Economic Affairs Secretary in May 2017, oversaw re-monetisation of the economy after the shock decision to withdraw 86 per cent of the currency in November 2016.

He first played a part in the Modi government’s crackdown on black money and then helped build a consensus for the impending rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Under Pranab Mukherjee, he was part of the budget making exercise for five consecutive years, first as a joint secretary and then as an additional secretary. This spanned over tenures of Mukherjee and Chidambaram.

After his retirement, he was named India's G-20 Sherpa and also appointed as a member of the 15th Finance Commission.

Das, a history graduate from the prestigious St Stephen's College in Delhi, was brought to the Finance Ministry soon after the BJP-led NDA government came to power in mid2014 and given charge of the crucial revenue department. He was later moved to the economic affairs department, which essentially deals with monetary policy and the RBI.

Mild-mannered, Das is known to rarely lose his cool and focus mostly on looking at solutions through consensus rather than shoving a solution down -- qualities that will come handy at RBI which is having an unprecedented faceoff with the finance ministry.

The rare blip on his otherwise illustrious career came in June 2016 when BJP’s Subramanian Swamy took a veiled dig that a case pending against Das for allegedly helping Chidambaram “swallow” real estate in Mahabalipuram. The attack was over a period when he was industry secretary in the Tamil Nadu government. Naturally, Jaitley came out in full defence of his trusted bureaucrat saying he fully backed him and “an unfair and false attack on a disciplined civil servant” was being made.