Fifty-two year old Urjit Patel will succeed Raghuram Rajan as the new governor of Reserve bank of India (RBI). He will take charge from September 4.
Media reports announced that Patel, who is currently the deputy governor of the Central bank, got a reappointment in January for three years.
The appointment was made based on the recommendation of the Financial Sector Regulatory Appointments Search Committee (FRSRASC), headed by the Cabinet Secretary, an RBI press release said. The committee had met twice to discuss all the possible names that can be considered for the assignment and had submitted a shortlist of names to the Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC), the release said.
Earlier today, speculations were rife that the Finance Ministry would announce the name of the next RBI governor.
Patel has run the central bank's monetary policy department since 2013 and was viewed as a leading contender for the governor's job. Patel will replace Rajan, a former International Monetary Fund chief economist who stunned financial markets in June by announcing he would step down in September and return to academia after a single three-year term at the RBI.
Seen as a close lieutenant to Rajan, Patel headed a committee that introduced landmark changes including a switch to inflation-targeting and adopting consumer prices as the new benchmark instead of wholesale prices. The changes he helped drive are considered to be among the most significant monetary policy reforms since India opened up its economy in 1991.
Patel, whose remit at the RBI included managing money markets, has faced criticism from market participants, with some complaining that he kept liquidity tight at a time when the RBI was lowering rates, starving banks of cash. Patel is considered a monetary 'hawk'.
As incumbent Rajan's exit date, which falls on September 4, nears, speculations about his successor had been doing the rounds for the past few weeks.
The other names that had been in consideration were that of Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya, Former RBI Deputy Governor Rakesh Mohan, SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya and Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das.
(With inputs from Reuters and ANI)