Leadership that reformed economics of a country

If foreign ministry is shouldered by a strong man than certainly economics of the country is also in safe hands. When countries are struggling with the inflation, India's RBI has maintained it within the specified target of 4-6%. The leadership that is fabricating the strongest economic policies and governance of RBI is one of the gem of India, again a bureaucrats. UPSC bureaucrats the cracking up the toughest exam provides the country, real heroic figures and never fails to adorn the nation with the gems. RBI governor, the Shakti Kanta Das, recently awarded the best governor of banking system in the world.  

The recognition of his leadership at the RBI and his work towards ensuring economic growth and stability.Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das has been ranked among the top three central bankers globally for the second consecutive year by the US-based magazine Global Finance.Das received an ‘A+’ rating in the Global Finance Central Banker Report Cards 2024, the RBI announced. According to Global Finance, grades are assigned on an “A+” to “F” scale based on success in areas such as inflation control, economic growth goals, currency stability, and interest rate management. The  annual Central Banker Report Cards recognize those leaders whose strategies have outperformed their peers through originality, creativity, and tenacity.

Shaktikanta Das, the current RBI Governor, had been transferred to head the central bank after holding crucial posts in the Finance Ministry. The retired 1980 batch IAS officer was earlier the Economic Affairs Secretary between 2015 and 2017 in the Finance Ministry during the tenure of Arun Jaitley. Das was also a member of the 15th Finance Commission and the Indian Sherpa to the G20 for a year. He took over office from Urjit Patel in December 2018 and has been appointed for a period of three years. Das holds a Masters degree in History from Delhi University and went on to pursue a course in Financial Management from IIM-Bangalore and then received mid-career training from IIM-Ahmedabad.

India's digitalization i.e. online payment has been a game changer and Das always focused on making UPI, RuPay truly global. UPI, the country’s real-time retail payment system, and its equivalent network in Singapore, UAE, France, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Namibia, Peru, PayNow, were integrated for enabling faster remittances between the citizens of the two countries at a highly competitive rate. Das innovative endeavours underscore collaborative efforts for adoption of India’s initiatives across the globe.

He highlighted that the country’s CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), which is in pilot stage, is another example of possible international co-operation. The Governor said the RBI is now utilising features like programmability to provide credit or government assistance to landless tenant farmers and carbon credits to farmers through CBDC. Programmability feature of CBDC refers to programming the money by tying the end use.“While we have successfully demonstrated the interoperability of CBDC with retail fast payment systems like UPI, we continue to gain from our experimentation on off-line solutions,”.

The RBI launched pilots for digital rupee in the wholesale in November 2022 and in the retail segment in December 2022. India is among the few countries that has launched CBDC or e-rupee pilots in wholesale and retail segments.