Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group on Saturday welcomed the appointment of Urjit Patel as the new RBI governor. In a tweet, Mahindra said, “A very astute move. He’s young, qualified & experienced. Above all, signals policy continuity. Markets should exhale.” Urjit Patel is currently one of the four deputy governors to the current governor Raghuram Rajan. Patel, 52 will take over as the 24th governor of India’s central bank on September 4. He has a Ph.D from Yale, MPhil from Oxford and BA From LSE. Patel was at IMF India desk from 1991-94 and consultant to the Finance Ministry from 1998 to 2001.
Business leaders from various sectors reacted on Urjit Patel’s appointment as new RBI governor. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Biocon said, “Urjit Patel has worked closely with Governor Rajan and I am not surprised with his appointment as RBI governor.” Anil Agarwal of Vedanta said: “Expect Urjit Patel to continue governor Rajan’s policy.” Many analysts have said that Urjit Patel’s appointment will send a positive message to global investors.
Also Read : Who is Urjit Patel? Everything you want to know about Raghuram Rajan’s successor as RBI governor
Apart from Patel, the other names that had been doing the rounds in the RBI governor race were SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian, World Bank economist Kaushik Basu and former RBI Deputy governor Subir Gokarn. Raghuram Rajan had on June 18 decided not to continue as the RBI governor after his term ends in September this year. In his last monetary policy as the RBI governor, Rajan kept key policy rates unchanged. His decision to not continue at the central bank took many by surprise. Many blamed it on Modi government’s inability to check severe criticism of Rajan from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy. Rajan on his part has said that his decision to return to academia has nothing to do with the criticism that has come his way.