Former World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) economist Poonam Gupta was appointed as the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) deputy governor on Wednesday. She will replace Michael Patra, who joined the Reserve Bank of India in 1985 and served as a deputy from mid-January 2020 until mid-January 2025.
Poonam Gupta, who was handed a three-year term, is the incumbent Director General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), the country's largest economic policy research institute, and a member of the Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"She is currently on the Boards of NIPFP and GDN (Global Development Network), a member of the World Bank’s advisory groups for ‘Poverty & Equity’ and the ‘World Development Report’, a member of the Development Advisory Committee of NITI Aayog, and of FICCI’s Executive Committee. She was the Chair of the Task Force on Macroeconomics and Trade during India’s G20 Presidency," said the NCAER website.
At NCAER, Gupta leads the work on issues related to Economic Growth, International Financial Architecture, Central Banking, Maro Economic Stablity, Public Debt, and State Finances, the website further said.
Here are five things to know about the new deputy governor of the RBI:
1. Poonam Gupta ideally would replace deputy governor Rajeshwar Rao as a member of the six-member monetary policy committee which is due to meet next week. Rao has been temporarily handling the monetary policy portfolio at the RBI after Patra's exit in January, Reuters said. Her three-year term would begin from the date of her assuming office or until further orders, a notification from the government's cabinet appointments committee showed.
2. Poonam Gupta taught at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Maryland (USA) and as a visiting faculty at ISI, Delhi. She has also been the RBI Chair Professor at NIPFP and a Professor at ICRIER.
3. She holds a Master's degree and PhD in Economics from University of Maryland, USA, and a Master's degree in Economics from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. She won the 1998 EXIM Bank award for her PhD on international economics.
4. Gupta had written in an article soon after the rate cut in February. "RBI has been chasing a dated inflation number and has often missed its forecast by a large margin. Households' inflationary expectations have remained misaligned, and transmission of monetary policy has not improved sufficiently," she said, calling for a fresh look at the inflation targeting framework.
Gupta in a separate opinion piece in March said while avoiding excessive appreciation or volatility of the exchange rate, RBI should still let the rupee move more than has been the case in the recent past.
5. Gupta has held senior roles at the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund apart from various academic positions over the last three decades. She also chaired the Task Force on Macroeconomics and Trade during India's G20 Presidency. She joined NCAER in 2021 after working in senior positions for nearly two decades at the IMF and World Bank in Washington DC.