The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is the Central bank of the country which was established on April 1, 1935, under the Reserve Bank of India establishment Act 1934. The regulatory framework for establishment of the Central Bank was recommended in 1926 by the Hilton young Commission or the Royal Commission on Indian currency.
What is the Central Bank?
The Central Bank is basically a Regulatory Authority of the rest of the banks. The RBI as a Central Bank is responsible for overseeing, controlling and regulating monetary policies which are formulated with specific goals to stabilize the currency, low inflation and encouraging employment opportunities.
RBI Headquarters
Headquarter of RBI : Mumbai
Initially the Headquarter or Central office of RBI was established in Kolkata but in 1937 it was permanently shifted to Mumbai.
Initially it was privately owned but after its Nationalization in 1949, the whole sole control went in the hands of the Government of India.
Board of Directors of RBI
All the important decisions of the RBI are taken by the Apex authority which is known as the Central Board of Directors. The provision for CBD is mentioned in section 8 of the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934.
There is one official directors body which comprises the supreme authority Governor and 4 Deputy Governors of RBI. These appointments are done by the Central Government of India as per the RBI act 1934. They are appointed for a tenure of 5 years, which is mentioned in Section 8(4) of the RBI Act. Apart from this official board of directors there is also a non-official board consisting of 14 members.
The Governor of RBI is appointed by the Prime Minister’s Office on the recommendation of the Union Finance Minister and the former Governor. While the deputy governor is appointed by the ACC.
Qualifications For RBI Governor
There are no such specific qualifications for becoming the Governor of the Central Bank of India. Persons with different educational backgrounds can be appointed as Governor. But the trend shows that either Civil servants or Economists with working experience in the field of financial services or economy are eligible to serve as the Governor of RBI.
Name of the Governor of RBI
Currently Mr. Shaktikanta Das is serving as the 26th Governor of RBI who is an IAS officer of 1980 batch from Tamil Nadu Cadre with History as his educational background. He has been a member of the fifteenth finance commission and India’s Sherpa to G20.
Out of 25, 14 Governors have been Civil Servants while the rest 7 were Economists.
Name of Deputy Governors of RBI
In present RBI has 4 serving Deputy Governors, whose names are;
- Mr Mahesh Kumar Jain
- Dr. Michael Debabrata Patra
- Mr. M. Rajeshwar Rao
- T. Rabi Shankar.
List of Governors of RBI
| A | B | C |
|---|---|---|
| SN | Governor Name | Tenure |
| 1 | Sir Osborne Smith | April 1, 1935 to June 30, 1937 |
| 2 | Sir James Braid Taylor | July 1, 1937 to February 17, 1943 |
| 3 | Sir CD Deshmukh | August 11, 1943 to June 30, 1949 |
| 4 | Sir Benegal Rama Rau | July 1, 1949 to 14 January 1957 |
| 5 | KG Ambegaonkar | January 14, 1957 to 28 February 1957 |
| 6 | HVR Iyengar | March 1, 1957 to February 28, 1962 |
| 7 | PC Bhattacharya | March 1, 1962 to June 30, 1967 |
| 8 | LK Jha | July 1, 1967 to May 3, 1970 |
| 9 | BN Adarkar | May 4, 1970 to June 15, 1970 |
| 10 | S. Jagannathan | June 16, 1970 to May 19, 1975 |
| 11 | NC Sen Gupta | May 19, 1975 to August 19, 1975 |
| 12 | KR Puri | August 20, 1975 to May 2, 1977 |
| 13 | M. Narasimhan | May 3, 1977 to November 30, 1977 |
| 14 | IG Patel |
December 1, 1977, to September 15, 1982 |
| 15 | Manmohan Singh |
September 16, 1982 to January 14, 1985 |
| 16 | Amitav Ghosh | January 15, 1985, to February 4, 1985 |
| 17 | RN Malhotra |
February 4, 1985, to December 22, 1990 |
| 18 | S. Venkatraman |
December 22, 1990 to December 21, 1992 |
| 19 | C. Rangarajan |
December 22, 1992, to November 21, 1997 |
| 20 | Bimal Jalan |
November 22, 1997 to September 6, 2003 |
| 21 | YV Reddy |
September 6, 2003, to September 5, 2008 |
| 22 | D. Subbarao |
September 5, 2008, to September 4, 2013 |
| 23 | Raghuram Rajan |
September 4, 2013, to September 4, 2016 |
| 24 | Urjit Patel |
September 4, 2016, to December 11, 2018 |
| 25 | Shashikanta Das | December 12, 2018, to October 2021 |
| 26 | Shashikanta Das | October 2021 to Present |
