Speculation rife over Subir Gokarn as new RBI governor

MUMBAI: There has been fresh speculation over who the next governor of the Reserve Bank of India will be after former deputy governor Subir Gokarn met outgoing RBI chief Raghuram Rajan on Friday. Raghuram Rajan on Friday. Incidentally during the week Gokarn also met finance secretary Shaktikanta Das.

The government has not given any indication on when it will name the next governor.However, there have been rumours that the appointment could come as early as this week along with the announcement of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which will take over the functions of fixing interest rates from the RBI. Hence, the monetary policy on Tuesday is expected to be the last one which will be presented by an RBI governor.

Earlier, the names of possible candidates for the post of the RBI governor that had been doing the rounds included chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian, former World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu, NITI Ayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya, former RBI deputy governor Rakesh Mohan and SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya.

Gokarn, 56, was the youngest to be appointed deputy governor of the RBI in 2009. Although denied a second term by the UPA government, he was named executive director at the International Monetary Fund in 2015. Before taking charge as deputy governor, Gokarn was Standard and Poor's chief economist for Asia-Pacific between 2007-09. A Ph.D with degree in economics from Case Western Reserve University, US, in 1989, Gokarn had held the position of associate professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research.