Will Always Be Available to Serve My Country When Needed - Governor Rajan
NOW it's confirmed - RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan is on his way out from the RBI. He is not accepting a second tenure - not that he is getting one. In the days when there were no live telecasts and TV channels, the RBI Governor was a relatively unknown officer signing on those currency notes. Today Subramanian Swamy, News Media and the Government have made Raghuram Rajan a super hero, the kind that Bollywood stars would be jealous of.
In his message to his Staff, Raghuram Rajan says,
I took office in September 2013 as the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. At that time, the currency was plunging daily, inflation was high, and growth was weak. India was then deemed one of the "Fragile Five". In my opening statement as Governor, I laid out an agenda for action that I had discussed with you, including a new monetary framework that focused on bringing inflation down, raising of Foreign Currency Non-Resident (B) deposits to bolster our foreign exchange reserves, transparent licensing of new universal and niche banks by committees of unimpeachable integrity, creating new institutions such as the Bharat Bill Payment System and the Trade Receivables Exchange, expanding payments to all via mobile phones, and developing a large loan data base to better map and resolve the extent of system-wide distress. By implementing these measures, I said we would "build a bridge to the future, over the stormy waves produced by global financial markets".
Today, I feel proud that we at the Reserve Bank have delivered on all these proposals .
Of course Subramanian Swamy is not impressed.
Rajan assures, "I will, of course, always be available to serve my country when needed." - if needed indeed.