The outgoing deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Shyamala Gopinath, has defended higher provisioning that State Bank of India (SBI) made in the fourth quarter of 2010-11, which saw its net plunging 99%, saying it does not call for a change in bank?s accounting and reporting standards and that RBI can only ensure that a bank makes all the mandated provisions.

?If at all there is an issue, it is about the rise in NPAs, and not in other provisions, which SBI made. The Reserve Bank can only ensure that a bank makes all the mandated provisions for all the heads we ask for,? said Gopinanth, who is on the board of SBI.

?The point is that irrespective of the fact who is the chairman, those provisions are to be made one quarter or other. So it is not about typically flouting norms, but about timing the provisioning,? Gopinath argued. Further adding, ?SBI?s Rs 500-crore teaser loan provision was one-time and was mandated, but the rest all, barring those for new NPAs, could have been staggered. If at all previous chairman OP Bhatt had remained in office, he too would have made these provisions.?

Gopinath, who retired today from the Mint Road office after 39 years of service, said she enjoyed managing many a crisis situation during her long years of service.

?There have been many testing periods during my career at the central bank. But I always enjoyed such situations, because our responsibility is to ensure that the public confidence in the system is not shaken,? Gopinath who joined RBI in April 1972.

Elaborating on the tough tasks that RBI has to handle, she says government borrowing is always a tough job,especially during a crisis.

?During the last crisis even the economy itself was in bad shape. So were the banks, with very low credit offtake. Therefore, liquidity management was the biggest challenge for us,? she recalls and reels out the list of serious crises as the Asian currency meltdown of 1997, the Kargil conflict of 1999, the Harshad Mehta stock scam of 1992, and ensuring liquidity during the India Millennium Bond maturity of 2000.

Haling from Karnataka, Gopinath has been handling the departments of internal debt management, foreign exchange, government and bank accounts, non-banking supervision, external investments and operations, financial markets, communication and legal, at the time of hanging up her boots.

Appointed as deputy governor on September 20, 2004 for five years, Gopinath was given an extension till June 20, 2011.