RBI CGM resigns over being superseded

S Ganesh was in charge of expenditure and budgetary control

S Ganesh, principal chief general manager (CGM) of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), who was in charge of expenditure and budgetary control, has resigned in protest as he was superseded for the selection of the executive director’s post. RBI has accepted his resignation and has relieved Ganesh from his duties.

In April, RBI promoted three principal CGMs as executive directors (EDs). Ganesh, who became CGM in 2004, was senior to two candidates who are made executive directors, Chandan Sinha and U S Paliwal. Apart from them, N S Vishwanathan, looking after the department of non-banking supervision and the senior-most among the 14 candidates interviewed, was promoted to the post of ED.

Seniority of two more candidates, KK Vora, principal CGM having the internal debt management portfolio and Meena Hemchandra who was principal of the Collage of Agricultural Banking, Pune, was also ignored. Central banking sources indicate that traditionally a person who becomes an executive director, always worked for some years as regional directors. However, this criteria was also ignored.

A search committee headed by RBI governor had interviewed 14 candidates to select three executive directors. The central bank has nine executive directors, and one of them - S Karuppasamy - retired recently. R Gandhi, who was an executive director, has now been promoted to the post of deputy governor. Also, G Gopalakrishna, one of the executive directors will now become the director of Centre for Advanced Financial Research and Learning (Cafral). Cafral is a research institution promoted by RBI.

However, this is not the first time that seniority is ignored. Earlier, VK Sharma's was superseded by Anand Sinha for the deputy governor's post. More recently, G Gopalakrishna was also superseded by R Gandhi for the deputy governor's post. A deputy governor in RBI is appointed by the government and executive director is appointed by RBI.

There have been instances when EDs were superseded in the past. For example, Anand Sinha and V S Das were  appointed EDs, though P K Mishra and S S Gangopadhyay were senior to them. While Mishra was later made head of Indian Institute of Bank Management, Guwahati, with all ED's perks and perquisites, Gangopadhyay had resigned in protest.