Bhubaneswar: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das has been conferred with the title of ‘Governor of the Year’ for 2023 by Central Banking, an international economic research journal, in London.
The organisers said that Das “cemented critical reforms, overseen world-leading payments innovation and steered India through difficult times with a steady hand and well-crafted turn of phrase”.
“Das’ tenure that began in 2018 has been marked by a series of grave challenges, starting with the collapse of a major non-bank firm, moving through the first and second waves of the coronavirus, and then, in 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its inflationary impact,” the statement further said.
It also mentioned “new concerns” about the risk of exposures and potential contagion risks linked to the public sector bank loans to companies such as Adani Group whose shares plunged following the Hindenburg report.
When Das took office in December 2018, the financial sector in India was moving through the first and second waves of the coronavirus and he oversaw the resolution of several collapsed non-bank financial companies, including IL&FS, leading to steady improvement of the banking sector. His tenure saw implementation of liquidity regulations for non-banks and closer supervision of major players in the sector. In October 2022, a new scale-based regulatory framework for NBFCs was introduced.
He is the second Central Bank governor to be honoured with the award after Raghuram Rajan, who bagged the title in 2015.
A retired IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, Das originally hails from Odisha. He studied in the Demonstration Multipurpose School here in Bhubaneswar.
