RBI shuffles top deck

Following Anand Sinha’s elevation as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor, S Karuppasamy has been promoted an executive director (ED) to fill the vacancy. Prior to this, Karuppasamy was the regional director (Kolkata). Now, he will look after the department of expenditure and budgetary control, besides information technology, urban banks and legal affairs.

Mint Road sources said the legal department had been brought under an ED after a long time. Earlier, it was directly being looked after by a deputy governor. Earlier this month, V K Sharma, the senior-most ED, was relieved from the department of urban banks, while the department of information technology had no ED earlier.

Sources said the department of banking operations and development, that of payments and settlement and the financial stability unit would have no ED as of now. The chief general managers of these three departments will directly report to their respective deputy governors.

As an executive director, Anand Sinha was looking after banking operations and development, financial stability and the department of expenditure and budgetary control.

Karuppasamy, the senior-most among chief general managers, was interviewed in November by a search panel comprising the governor and deputy governors. He has three years of service left and is to retire in January 2014. To be eligible for the post of ED, a chief general manager should have three years of residual service. The retirement age for all RBI employees is 60.

The central bank, which has seven EDs, will see one more vacancy in February, with C Krishnan’s term coming to an end. Interviews were conducted last week to find a replacement. R Gandhi, a chief general manager looking after the department of currency management, and P Vijaya Bhaskar, regional director (Bangalore), had appeared for the interview.

The chief executive officer’s post in the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) – a wholly owned subsidiary of RBI – has been lying vacant since October 31 after H N Prasad’s retirement. For the past few years, DICGC has been headed by an ED-rank officer. In May, Deputy Governor Shyamala Gopinath will retire. She will be replaced by an ED.