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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor D Subbarao will give his parting speech today evening at the Tata theatre, national center for performing arts. Subbarao's five-year term ends on September 4. Subbarao had taken over as the governor of RBI in the first week of September 2008. Today he will speak about his five years of leading the central bank and the way forward when the next governor Raghuram Rajan takes charge.
Subbarao was the twenty-second governor of RBI who took over at the time of the global financial crisis. Subbarao is leaving at a time when the rupee is under pressure against the dollar due to global and domestic factors which paves the way for challenges for Rajan.
Immediately after taking charge in September 2008, Subbarao had resorted to a repo rate cutting spree to boost the economic growth. The repo rate was reduced by as much as 425 basis points till April 2009. But from there till October 2011, he raised the repo rate by 375 basis points. Finally he again started cutting the repo rate last fiscal and till May 2013 the cuts were made to the extent of 100 basis points. The repo rate currently stands at 7.25%.
As Subbarao leaves RBI the street awaits concrete measures from Rajan which would lead to strengthening of the rupee and reduction in high interest rates which are hurting growth.
