RBI Deputy Governor in charge of monetary policy, Urjit Patel was appointed as the next Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, on Saturday evening. He will be succeeding Raghuram Rajan whose tenure will be over on 4 September.
At 52, Patel was the youngest contender for the post. He will also be the eighth Deputy Governor to be made Governor at RBI.
In an earlier report Bloomberg Quint had predicted Urjit Patel to be the only front runner for the governor’s post.
He was first appointed as Deputy Governor for three years in January 2013.
Patel has been known as ‘inflation warrior’ of Rajan, who made a surprise announcement in June that he would return to academia after the end of his current three-year tenure as Governor.
In recent months, Rajan has come under attack from some quarters, including BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy, for what they call his reluctance to lower interest rates and giving priority to control inflation.
Prior to his appointment as the Deputy Governor at RBI in 2013, Patel was an advisor (Energy and Infrastructure) with Boston Consulting Group. He has also worked with Reliance Industries in the past.
Patel, born on 28 October, 1963, received his doctorate in economics from Yale University (1990) and MPhil from Oxford (1986).
He has worked with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) between 1990 and 1995 covering the US, India, Bahamas and Myanmar desks.
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