The RBI Governor

By Vijay Kumar

THE RBI Governor has less job security than the lowest government employee. He is appointed by the Government; no specific qualifications are prescribed. The Governor shall hold office for such term not exceeding five years as the Central Government may fix when appointing him, and shall be eligible for re-appointment. The Central Government may remove the Governor from office.

As Governor, Raghuram Rajan received a gross salary of Rs. 1,98,000/- in July 2015. Though technically the Government can appoint anybody as RBI Governor, so far they have appointed people of real eminence as these names would show:

CD Deshmukh, Benegal Rama Rau, HVR Iyengar, LK Jha, S. Jagannathan, KR Puri, IG Patel, Manmohan Singh, S. Venkitaramanan, C. Rangarajan, BimalJalan, YV Reddy, D. Subba Rao and Raghuram Rajan.

There is a school of thought that Dr. Rajan should be made the Finance Minister of India, notwithstanding his green card!