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Tamal Bandyopadhyay
Mumbai, May 4: Reserve Bank of India deputy governors SP Talwar and Jagdish Capoor--who are scheduled to call it a day in June--have got two years extension. The finance ministry on Tuesday notified the extensions, drawing curtains to the succession drama on the Mint Street in Mumbai. The ministry note reached the central bank headquarters in the evening.
The Financial Express in March carried a report saying the ministry is likely to give two-year extension to both the deputy governors.
According to sources close to the North Block, a general notification raising the retirement age of RBI deputy governors from 60 to 62 is expected later this week.
The proposal for raising the retirement-age limit by two years was mooted by the RBI governor Bimal Jalan. "The Government has seen the logic behind the move and acted accordingly," sources said.
The objective behind the move, bringing the deputy governors on par with chief justices of high courts, is to give the "regulators" a slighly longer tenure thancommerical bankers.
At present, the retirement age of bank chairmen as well as RBI deputy governors is fixed at 60 while the RBI governor can continue up to 65 through extensions. "Ideally, an RBI deputy governor should have a longer tenure than a bank chairman. Now that the retirement-age limit is being raised, commercial bankers also will get an opportunity at the RBI even after completing their tenure as bank chairman which was not possible earlier," sources said.
Going by the convention, one commerical banker, an IAS and an insider occupy the three deputy governors' posts. Among the three present DGs, YV Reddy is an IAS (from the banking division, finance ministry) and economist while Talwar is a commerical banker (his last posting was chairman, Bank of Baroda) and Capoor an insider (who had a stint as UTI chief on deputation). Till November 1997, the fourth deputy governor's post was also occupied by an IAS.
Capoor handles exchange control, rural credit, industrial and export credit and internaladministration, while Talwar's portfolio includes department of banking operations, supervision of banks as well as non-banking finance companies, internal inspection and information technology.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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