The central government on Monday appointed Sanjay Malhotra as the next governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Malhotra, who currently serves as the Secretary in the Department of Revenue, will replace Shaktikanta Das at the central bank.
In a notification, the Department of Personnel and Training stated that Malhotra will be the next RBI Governor for a period of three years starting 11 December, 2024.
Sanjay Malhotra, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1990 batch from the Rajasthan cadre, holds an engineering degree in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur and a master’s in public policy from Princeton University.
Throughout his career, Malhotra has held several key positions, including the Chairman and Managing Director of REC Limited (a Maharatna company), Secretary in the Department of Financial Services, among others. In December 2022, he took over the role of Revenue Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, succeeding Tarun Bajaj.
In April 2023, he was also assigned the additional charge of Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
There was speculation that Shaktikanta Das’ tenure as RBI Governor, ending 10 December, may not be extended for another term. In 2021, the government announced a three-year extension to Das’s tenure, a month before his term came to an end.
During his six-year term as RBI Governor, Shaktikanta Das dealt with a slew of challenges, including Covid-19 and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. However, the RBI’s refusal to cut key rates citing inflation came under criticism from the industry and government alike, amid growing calls to address the slowdown in GDP growth in the September quarter at 5.4 per cent.
In the last meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), the RBI kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent for the 11th straight time. Das, while unveiling bi-monthly policy, made it clear that the RBI had been acting as per the flexibility offered by the statutes to the central bank and that its effort is to keep the inflation horse on a tight leash.
