RAJAN 4 L(Dcm50)

Under Rajan, RBI also introduced the era of differentiated Under Rajan, RBI also introduced the era of differentiatedbanking. Eight payments banks and 10 small finance banks areexpected to start operations soon. Within the RBI, Rajan’s tenure will be remembered forgreater vigour, clarity of thoughts and lucid communication,which saw many outside experts being drawn in for specialisedjobs. Rajan may also be the rare governor who enjoyed supportfrom employee unions. However, there were a few fronts on which he could notsucceed, like creating a new post of chief operating officerfor the central bank. Early in his tenure, senior-most Deputy Governor KCChakrabarty quit before the end of his second term, givingrise to a lot of speculation. Rajan plans to take a holiday before joining back work atChicago soon. He wants to catch up with developments in aworld that has changed a lot since he left nearly five yearsago and then analyse what to expect for the future. With politics being discounted (thanks to his wifeRadhika’s dislike for the domain), the capacity in which hewould return will be keenly watched. While working on development of banking space and othermonetary reforms, Rajan never shied away from commenting onpolitical and social issues, which earned him a lot ofcriticism. However, he defended his utterances saying everypublic figure including RBI Governor must share their views asthey also act as role models for the youth. On a day when the RBI signed the all-important monetarypolicy agreement with the government, Rajan had invokedHitler’s regime to drive home the point that ‘strong’governments will not always drive move in the right direction. With regard to non-performing assets, Rajan prescribed"deep surgery" for the clean-up that would require an"anaesthetic" in the form of recognising NPAs on their books. Rajan also went public with a critique of the new GDPcalculation method, which overnight made the country thefastest growing major economy in the world with 7.6 per centgrowth as against the low 5 per cent when the NDA governmenttook over. "There are problems with the way we count GDP which iswhy we need to be careful sometimes just talking aboutgrowth," Rajan told the students of the RBI-promoted IndiraGandhi Institute of Development Research this January. PTI AABEN DP CS BJABMSRE