Viral Acharya: The elusive outlier in the middle of the govt-RBI spat

Acharya has been a strong proponent of cleaning up bad debt on banks' books and is an active supporter of the PCA framework for weaker public sector banks

In his maiden speech as Reserve Bank of India deputy governor, Viral Acharya proposed to create two asset management companies -- one private and another public -- to tackle banks' bad asset problem. It was a radically new thought being proposed by a senior central bank official, even though it was floated outside the realm of central banking before. Acharya himself had research papers on the issue. 

At the time of the speech in February 2017, Acharya was just a month into his job and the media was hungry for his views. He did give a glimpse into himself every