Headhunt begins for RBI Deputy Guv Sinha's replacement

Gopalakrishna, Gandhi, Vijaya Bhaskar in frontrunners

The Union government has begun the process of finding a replacement for Anand Sinha, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), who is to retire on January 18.

A four-member panel headed by Governor Raghuram Rajan will interview nine executive directors (EDs) of the central bank on the coming Friday to select a successor. The other members of the committee are Rajiv Takru, secretary, financial services, in the Union government; Shekhar Chaudhuri, professor and former director of Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Calcutta, and Prakash Apte, former director, IIM-Bangalore.

To be eligible for becoming a deputy governor, a person needs to be below 60 years. A deputy governor can be appointed till the age of 62 or for a period of five years, whichever is earlier. G Gopalakrishna, the seniormost ED in RBI is seen as a strong contender. So are R Gandhi and P Vijaya Bhaskar. Gopalakrishna has spent considerable time in the department of banking supervision, Gandhi heads the department of currency management and development, while Vijaya Bhaskar has the department of non-banking supervision.

Sinha, who is in charge of the department of banking operations and development (DBoD), has also been handling the long process of inviting and selecting applicants for new bank licences.

Rajan had said he wanted to complete the process of selecting the new licensees during Sinha’s tenure. “I hope to announce the licences within, or soon after, the term of DG Anand Sinha, who has been shepherding the process. His term expires in January 2014,” Rajan said on September 4, the day he took charge. However, the new deputy governor might not automatically get Sinha’s portfolio. The governor can award an outgoing DG’s departments to others. Apart from DBoD, Sinha also looks after non-banking supervision and urban banks risk monitoring, among others. He was appointed DG in January 2011 for two years; last year, his term was extended by another year.

RBI has four deputy governors. Traditionally, two of them are promoted from within the ranks of RBI, another is an economist and the fourth from commercial banks. The other deputy governors at present are K C Chakrabarty, H R Khan and Urjit Patel. Chakrabarty, who was a commercial banker, will retire in June 2014, after completing five years in RBI.