Arvind Subramanian resigns before term; Jaitley announces CEA exit on FB

Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian informed me that he would like to go back to the US on account of pressing family commitments, Jaitley wrote in Facebook post

Union minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday announced Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian’s departure in an unusual way through a blog on Facebook. Subramanian will step down within the next two months, after nearly four years in the role. His tenure with the government, extended last year, was to run till May 2019.
 
“A few days ago Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian met me over video-conferencing. He informed me that he would like to go back to the US on account of pressing family commitments. His reasons were personal but extremely important for him. He left me with no option but to agree,” Jaitley wrote.
 
Sources said this was the latest of the many discussions that Jaitley and Subramanian had over the latter’s departure.
 
According to sources, the process of identifying Subramanian’s successor has been under way for two months. The contenders include Rathin Roy of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, Neelkanth Mishra of Credit Suisse, Jahangir Aziz of JP Morgan, Ruchir Sharma of Morgan Stanley, and Principal Economic Advisor Sanjeev Sanyal.

 
A number of people who had been approached had sought Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) contracts instead of the normal three-year contract, sources added. This is something the government is not in favour of. A UPSC contract allows a person appointed to stay on till the retirement age of 60. And the government will have to follow due process, starting with placing advertisements in newspapers.
 
Subramanian informed Jaitley directly of his decision, and not Finance Minister Piyush Goyal, since his discussions had been going on with the former, sources said. Subramanian was waiting for Jaitley to resume duties after a kidney transplant surgery before informing him that he would not be able to delay his departure anymore.

 
Subramanian said he had informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi of his decision after consulting Jaitley.
 
Talking to reporters later in the day, Subramanian said he was expecting the birth of his first grandchild in the first week of September, and hence was returning to research and academics in the US. He was yet undecided on the exact date of leaving the finance ministry, but it would be in a month or two. Subramanian called his stint in the finance ministry the best job and "also the best job I will ever have". He added that in Jaitley he had a ‘dream boss’. "I will go back with the best of memories. I will always be committed to serving the country at all times in the future," he said.

 
Subramanian was appointed CEA on October 16, 2014, for a period of three years. In 2017, his term was extended till the end of the current government’s tenure. Earlier in his blog post, Jaitley had written that on the expiry of Subramanian's three-year term in October last year, he had requested him to continue for some more time.
 
"Even at that stage he told me that he was torn between family commitments and his current job, which he considered the best and most fulfilling he had ever done," the minister said.

 
"Personally I will miss his dynamism, energy, intellectual ability and ideas. He would walk into my room several times a day addressing me as ‘Minister’ to give either the good news or otherwise. Needless to say, his departure will be missed by me. But I know that his heart is very much here. I am sure he will keep sending advice and analysis wherever he is," Jaitley wrote in his blog post.
 
Commenting on Subramanian’s departure, former finance minister P Chidambaram said: “I am disappointed, but not surprised, that Arvind Subramanian has decided to leave the government before the end of his term. He was either not consulted or his views were brushed aside on many important issues.” Chidambaram was referring to the fact that the CEA was not consulted on demonetisation and his recommendations on possible rates of the goods and services tax (GST) were not accepted.

 
“I am sure that with age on his side, Arvind Subramanian will return to serve under a future government. I thank him for describing the UPA years of 2005-2010 as the "boom period" of the Indian economy,” Chidambaram added.
 
When Subramanian, a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, was appointed the CEA in October 2014, perhaps he himself did not anticipate how eventful his tenure would be. The biggest impact he left on the policy and economic landscape was through the Economic Surveys. They have stood out for starting debates and discussions on a number of issues, including providing targeted government services through the ‘JAM trinity’ of Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile, the launch of a bad bank, the problem of twin balance sheets, universal basic income for the poor, the concept of ‘stigmatised capitalism’ and in the last Survey, a portion on India’s ‘unwanted’ missing women. These surveys have been widely read in India and across the world, and have also become part of the syllabus in various universities and colleges.