Former chief economic adviser (CEA) Krishnamurthy V Subramanian will take over as the next executive director (ED) for India at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from November 1. He will replace economist Surjit Bhalla.
According to an order by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet on Thursday, Subramanian’s term will continue for a period of three years or until further orders, whichever is earlier. Bhalla was appointed in 2019 after then ED for India and former RBI deputy governor Subir Gokarn died in July that year.
After completing a three-year tenure as the CEA in December 2021, Subramanian returned to ISB Hyderabad where he is serving as a professor. As the CEA, he had helped steer the economy during the unprecedented Covid crisis and before. Early into the first Covid wave in 2020, Subramanian had predicted a V-shaped recovery for the economy. Subsequently, GDP grew 8.9% in FY22 following a record 6.6% contraction in the previous year.
More recently, following a cut in fuel taxes by the Centre in May to tame inflation, Subramanian had suggested that “high-tax states” like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and West Bengal follow suit.
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A PhD in financial economics from the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, and an alumnus of IIM Calcutta as well as IIT Kanpur, Subramanian is an expert in banking, corporate governance and economic policy. His PhD was completed under the supervision of former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan. Before assuming the role of the CEA, he had also served as a member of the expert panel on corporate governance headed by Uday Kotak and the PJ Nayak committee on governance of bank boards.
