NEW DELHI: Decks are being cleared for appointing renowned economist Arvind Subramanian the government’s Chief Economic Advisor. His name is learnt to have gone to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet for approval.
Subramanian is presently a senior fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics and Centre for Global Development, based in the US. In 2011, Foreign Policy magazine had named him one of the world’s top 100 global thinkers.
The CEA post has been vacant since Raghuram Rajan resigned almost a year before, to become the Reserve Bank Governor. Subramanian, sources said, was suggested by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Earlier an assistant director in the research department of the International Monetary Fund, Subramanian has also served at the GATT between 1988 and 1992 during the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations and taught at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government between 1999 and 2000 and at Johns Hopkins’ School for Advanced International Studies between 2008 and 2010). If selected, he will head a team of economic advisors who bring out the government’s annual Economic Survey.
The team headed by the CEA also authors a mid-year analysis of the economy, presented in the winter session of Parliament. The CEA basically heads the economic division and Indian Economic Service division in the finance ministry. The main activities here include monitoring macro economic trends and policy issues.
With larger economic growth expected to only gradually recover this financial year from sub-five per cent in 2012-13 and 2013-14, and inflation still to show a consistent pattern of a decline, Subramanian will have no shortage of work.
Interestingly, Subramanian was critical of the government’s decision of walking out of the recent WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement and also expressed his disappointment over the first budget presented by the Modi government.