NEW DELHI: One year after opting for voluntary retirement, former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg blamed Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for his unceremonious exit from the Finance Ministry. Garg wrote in his blog on Saturday that Sitharaman had insisted on his transfer within a month of her taking over as finance minister. “Nirmala Sitharaman has a very different personality, knowledge endowment, skillset and approach for economic policy issues and it became quite apparent very early, that working with her was going to be quite difficult,” Garg wrote.
He went on to add that serious differences between the minister and Garg had developed on key issues such as the economic capital framework of RBI, a package for dealing with problems of non-banks, resolution of non-banks, partial credit guarantee scheme, capitalisation of non-banks like IIFCL and other financial entities. “Very soon, not only had our personal relationship soured, but the official working relationship also become quite unproductive.
Mrs. Sitaraman asked for and insisted on my transfer from the Ministry of Finance in June 2019 itself, within one month of her taking over as FM,” Garg said. While he had made up his mind to quit, he said he wanted to do it after the budget was presented. “Despite quite a few episodes of acrimony which had made
the working environment unpleasant, I decided that I would do everything possible to see that budget was not harmed and it was delivered on time,” he wrote.
Garg, who was supposed to retire on October 31, 2019, had resigned from the Indian Administrative Services in July after he was unexpectedly removed as finance secretary and was transferred to the power ministry, where he served his 3-month notice. “I was able to take and implement bold and sometimes unconventional decisions throughout my career, which might not have kept my bosses in good humour sometimes,” Garg had said on the day of his retirement, without taking any names. Even post retirement, Garg has been substantially vocal about various economic issues.