Mumbai: The appointment of Shaktikanta Das as 25th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India happened on December 12, 2018 when his predecessor, Urjit Patel resigned abruptly citing personal reasons following a fallout with the government over the central bank's autonomy.
The 67 year old Das’ six year tenure came to an end on Tuesday. His tenure witnessed unprecedented events, including the collapse of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), COVID-19 pandemic and significant global challenges such as the Ukraine war and the Middle East crisis. Here are some of the hits and misses during his tenure:
HITS:
Covid 19 pandemic: Das reduced the repo rate by 115 basis points to revive the economy. He continued with low interest rates for almost 2 years and offered a six month loan moratorium to mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic.
As economy revived raised interest rates starting May 2022 to keep inflation under check Instrumental in ensuring that economic growth remains over 7 per cent in the last 4 years of his six-year term.
His success in checking inflation and boosting growth earned him
re-appointment for another three years in 2021. Deftly handled the NBFC crisis which saw collapse of IL&FS, Dewan Housing Finance and Reliance Capital. Also saved Yes Bank and Laxmi Vilas Bank.
Brought down bad loans (gross non-performing assets) from 10.8 per cent in September 2018 to 2.8 per cent at end-March 2024
Focused on making Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and RuPay global.
Daily UPI transactions increased from 10 million in 2018 to over 500 million by 2024, with a record 16.58 billion transactions worth Rs 23.49 lakh crore by October 2024.
Launched the central bank digital currency (CBDC), or digital rupee, for both wholesale and retail use
In May 2023, the RBI announced the withdrawal of Rs 2,000 notes aimed at reducing the risk of counterfeiting. Unlike demonetization of 2016, the withdrawal of Rs 2000 notes was done without disruption
Paid record dividend to the government of Rs 2.11 lakh crore for the year 2023-24
Twice ranked the top central banker by the US-based Global Finance magazine Introduced stringent capital adequacy standards and improved supervisory systems
Chaired his last meeting of the rate-setting panel — Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) on Dec 6
MISSES
Despite a 250 basis points hike in the repo rate between May 2022 and February 2023, consumer price index-based (CPI) inflation continues to remain elevated and above the RBI’s comfort zone of 2-6 per cent.
