Central bank became stronger, surer under Das

A LOOK BACK KEY NUMBERS DURING THE 6-YEAR TENURE OF OUTGOING RBI GOVERNOR SHAKTIKANTA DAS

- SUBRATA PANDA & ANJALI KUMARI

On balance, Shaktikanta Das' six-year tenure as governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), ending on Tuesday, was successful. He shielded India's financial system from several challenges and crises.

Das took charge on December 12, 2018, after Urjit Patel stepped down. Having done his master's from St Stephen's College, Delhi, Das had served as secretary, Department of Revenue and Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance.

As governor, he presided over one of the most volatile periods for India and the world as the pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas wars threatened to undermine the country's financial stability.

During the pandemic, the RBI took conventional and unconventional measures to address liquidity and asset-quality constraints. These were not open-ended as most of them were announced with preset terminal dates. As a result, their unwinding did not cause market disruption. Additionally, the RBI chose to confine its asset-purchase programme to government securities in the secondary market, unlike some other emerging market central banks that directly financed governments through the primary market during the pandemic. This decision was made to avoid monetising the fiscal deficit, a practice the RBI had discontinued in the late 1990s.