The government appointed three new external members ahead of the MPC meeting
New Delhi| The government appointed three new external members to the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India, including Ram Singh, Saugata Bhattacharya and Nagesh Kumar. The reconstitution of the Committee has preceded the important policy meeting on interest rate decisions scheduled for 7-9 October.
The MPC has six members, three of whom are from within the central bank. These include Governor Shaktikanta Das, Deputy Governor Michael Patra and Executive Director Rajiv Ranjan. Whereas three external members are appointed by the Central Government for four years. These new members will replace MPC Mumbai professor Ashima Goyal, IIM-Ahmedabad professor Jayant Verma and New Delhi senior advisor Shashank Bhide, whose tenure ends on Friday.
New members of MPC
Ram Singh
According to research portal Ideas for India, Ram Singh is the director of the prestigious Delhi School of Economics, which holds PhD (JNU, New Delhi) and post-doctorate (Harvard) degrees in law and economics. His areas of research are contract theory, public economics, and public private partnerships. He has received Fulbright, Commonwealth, Erasmus Mundus fellowships in economics, and Ronald Koss fellowships in economics. His publications can be found in the Economic and Political Weekly. One of his publications – ‘The Efficiency of Comparative Causation’ (with Francesco Parisi) – is in the Review of Law and Economics, 2011. In addition to DSE, he has taught at Brown University, the University of Hamburg, Jawaharlal Nehru University and has been a Commonwealth Fellow at the London School of Economics.
Saugata Bhattacharya
Saugata Bhattacharya is the former Chief Economist of Axis Bank Limited, with over 30 years of experience in economic and financial market analysis, policy advocacy, infrastructure and project finance, consumer behaviour and analysis. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. According to the CPR portal, Bhattacharya plays a key role in the ongoing work with the Andhra Pradesh government-he supports the Data Analytics Unit. They conduct research on macro-financial forecasting, review of global and domestic developments, digital public infrastructure and urbanization in the MSME sector, banking, financial and insurance sectors. Earlier, at IDFC, he worked as an expert with the Policy Advisory Group and participated in several key committees of the Government of India, including the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Infrastructure.
Nagesh Kumar
Nagesh Kumar is the Director and Chief Executive of the Institute of Industrial Development Studies. Before taking this office in May 2021, Kumar served as a Director at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. A number of senior management roles took place during 2009-21, including the functions of Chief Economist at UNESCAP headquarters in Bangkok, Director of Macroeconomic Policy and Financing for Development Division and Social Development Division. He was the head of the South and South-West Asia office located in New Delhi, which he had established. Kumar is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.
