Who is Poonam Gupta? Meet the new RBI Deputy Governor

New Delhi: The government has appointed Poonam Gupta as a Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India for three years to replace Michael D. Patra, who retired from the key post in January this year.

Her name has been cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet just ahead of the monetary policy committee’s meeting scheduled for April 7 to 9. At present, she is the Director General at the National Council of Applied Economic Research.

Gupta is also a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and a member of the advisory council to the 16th Finance Commission.

She is also part of the Development Advisory Committee of the NITI Aayog and chaired the Task Force on Macroeconomics and Trade during India’s G20 Presidency.

She has earlier worked as a lead economist at the World Bank. Her career includes serving as the RBI Chair Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) and as a Professor at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER).

Gupta holds positions on the NIPFP and the Global Development Network (GDN) boards and is a member of the World Bank’s advisory groups on ‘Poverty & Equity’ and the ‘World Development Report.’

At NCAER, Gupta leads research on key areas such as economic growth, international financial systems, central banking, macroeconomic stability, public debt, and state finances.

Gupta holds a PhD and Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Maryland, USA, along with a Master’s degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics. She was honoured with the 1998 EXIM Bank Award for her doctoral work on international economics.

The RBI has four deputy governors, two of whom serve as central bank officers. The third Deputy Governor is an economist who oversees the Monetary Policy Department, and the fourth is a commercial bank official. The post of Deputy Governor to be filled by Gupta had remained vacant for two months after Patra’s retirement.