Change of guard: Who is Sanjay Malhotra, Centre's pick as new RBI governor?

As revenue secretary, Malhotra took key decisions, including rationalisation of capital gains tax

Ahead of the presentation of Budget FY26 in February next year, revenue secretary Sanjay Malhotra gave a patient hearing to industry bodies on November 7 and received their pre-Budget recommendations.

 

Little did anyone expect that in a month’s time, the soft-spoken Malhotra will be leaving the Budget-making exercise behind and heading to Mint Street to become the next Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor.   

A 1990-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Rajasthan cadre, Malhotra became revenue secretary on December 1, 2022, after an eight-month stint as secretary in the Department of Financial Services (DFS). 

That brief tenure in handling the banking and non-banking sector will now come in handy for Malhotra as regulator of the sector.

Prior to his stint in North Block, Malhotra served as the chairman and managing director of Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) and additional secretary in the Ministry of Power.   

As revenue secretary, Malhotra took several key decisions, including rationalisation of capital gains tax in this year's Budget, rationalisation of slabs in the new tax regime to encourage migration from the old tax regime, and removal of windfall gain tax, which provided significant relief to the oil refining industry. He also played a key role in aligning the interests of states and the central government during discussions at the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meetings that also led to imposition of 28 per cent tax on online gaming. Between 2003 and 2018, he mostly worked in his home cadre in departments such as mining, commercial taxes, information technology, energy and revenue. 

In between, Malhotra also worked as project coordinator with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in a foreign posting in the rank of a deputy secretary. 

Between 2000 and 2003, he served as personal secretary to the minister of state for space and minister of state for 

micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). 

Malhotra holds a degree in Computer Science Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, and a Master's in Public Policy from Princeton University. 

In one of his last public engagements on December 4, Malhotra cautioned officers of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) not to “kill the golden goose” and keep the interest of the economy in mind before issuing high-pitched notices in commercial fraud cases. 

As next governor of the RBI, Malhotra will also have to give the highest priority to the interest of the economy while deciding on the growth-inflation trade off at Mint Street.