Bid welcome to RBI's new Deputy Governor, Michael Debabrata Patra!

Mumbai, Jauary 14: Michael Debabrata Patra has been appointed deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as revealed by the Personnel Ministry order on Tuesday. Patra, who is looking after the monetary policy department as the executive director, will be the fourth deputy governor of the RBI.

 

 

The post was lying vacant after Viral V Acharya had resigned from the post in June last year. Patra is likely to retain the monetary policy department, which was handled by Acharya, as the deputy governor. Patra, who has a PhD in Economics from IIT-Bombay, is a career central banker. His MPC statements indicate he is balanced in his views on helping the economy navigate the growth-inflation conundrum.

 

At the last MPC meeting, he said: “The configuration of macroeconomic and financial conditions facing the MPC in this meeting exerts conflicting pulls. Arguably, the slump in real GDP growth warrants accommodative monetary policy actions and stance, whereas the upturn in headline inflation for the third month in succession after a quiescent phase of nine months calls for an opposite response or at least status quo until there is ground to infer that the food price spirals that are driving it are on the ebb.”

 

While voting for status quo in the last meeting, Patra emphasised that it is important to note that headroom is available to act and arrest any further weakening of growth impulses. With this objective , he also voted for maintaining the accommodative monetary policy stance. The RBI, headed by Governor Shaktikanta Das, can have a maximum of four deputy governors while N S Vishwanathan, B P Kanungo and M K Jain are the other deputy governors working at the central bank.