Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel has convened a meeting of the board of directors of the Central Bank on November 19 to discuss issues related to liquidity for NBFCs, credit for MSMEs and new economic capital framework. The RBI Central Board which constitutes 21 members including the Governor and maximum of four deputy governors is appointed in accordance with the RBI Act of 1934. The board meets once in every six months and nearly once in every quarter. The Finance Minister also meets the Board after presenting the annual budget in Delhi. The Board generally meets in different states in a year.

Current members

The RBI Central Board at present comprises of 18 members, including five official directors: Governor Urjit Patel and four deputy governors, N S Vishwanathan, Viral Acharya, B P Kanungo and Mahesh Kumar Jain. The Governor and deputy governors generally get a five-year term, but it can also be less as in case of Raghuram Rajan who just served or three years. He didn’t get any extension. In this current board, Subhash Chandra Garg, Economic Affairs Secretary, and Rajiv Kumar, Financial Services Secretary are the nominees of the government.

Also read:  Share market LIVE updates: Sensex up 250 points, Nifty above 10,650; Jet Airways up 9%, Yes Bank slumps 7%

The four directors representing the Local Boards (one for each region) are Revathy Iyer, former Indian Audit and Accounts Service officer; Sachin Chaturvedi, Director General, Research and Information Systems for Developing Countries, an autonomous policy research institute based in Delhi; Dilip S Shanghvi, Managing Director of Sun Pharmaceutical; and P K Mohanty, a former IAS officer who is now the Economics Chair Professor, University of Hyderabad. The seven more directors appointed by the government are Satish Kashinath Marathe, S Gurumurthy, N Chandrasekaran, B N Doshi, Sudhir Mankad, Ashok Gulati and Manish Sabharwal. The non-official part-time directors were appointed between March 2016 and August 2018 and they enjoy a four-year term.

The political executive chooses the part-time directors and non-official directors. The Department of Financial Services under the Finance Ministry moves the proposal to  appointment of the Central Board. It needs to be approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet.