Arvind Virmani's term extended by 3 months

The government today extended the tenure of Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Virmani by three months on a temporary basis, said a finance ministry spokesperson. His current two-year term came to an end today.

The pre-Budget Economic Survey will be tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on July 2 and Virmani, who holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University, leads the team that helps the government prepare the survey. With the government under pressure for not maintaining fiscal prudence, Virmani acted as the government’s chief spokesperson in justifying the need for running high government expenditure to sustain economic growth as private consumption and investment have slowed down.

Prior to joining the finance ministry as the CEA in 2007, Virmani served as principal advisor in the Planning Commission.

He also served as senior economist in the research department of the World Bank and headed the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, an economic think-tank.

Virmani, who had earlier served as director in state-owned banks like Punjab National Bank and Allahabad Bank, is one among the favourites for the post of deputy governor in the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This post fell vacant after Rakesh Mohan, who was handling monetary policy, quit the central bank to pursue a teaching assignment in Stanford University.

Another deputy governor’s post will also fall vacant over the next few months with Shymala Gopinath’s tenure coming to an end.

As CEA, Virmani had strongly advocated for banking and financial sector reforms, saying it would increase the efficiency of financial intermediation.