The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) appointed Poonam Gupta as its new Deputy Governor. She is the first woman to assume this post in more than a decade. Gupta is a well-known economist with nearly 20 years of experience at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). She has also been a government adviser in India. She was the Director General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), which is a well-known think tank based in New Delhi.
Gupta takes over from Michael Patra, who led the RBI’s monetary policy department before retiring in January. She is expected to join the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which has reduced interest rates for the first time in five years under the new Governor, Sanjay Malhotra.
Poonam Gupta has been vocal about key economic issues. She has argued for a more flexible exchange rate to help India handle economic shocks better, in recent articles. In a March article for The Economic Times, she suggested that India should reconsider its approach to managing foreign exchange reserves.
She has also emphasised the importance of price stability and suggested updating the weight of food prices in the inflation index. Poonam Gupta is also a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and Convener of the Advisory Council to the 16th Finance Commission. She is currently on the Boards of NIPFP and GDN (Global Development Network), a member of the World Bank’s advisory groups for ‘Poverty & Equity’ and the ‘World Development Report’.
She is also a member of the Development Advisory Committee of NITI Aayog, and of FICCI’s Executive Committee. She was the Chair of the Task Force on Macroeconomics and Trade during India’s G20 Presidency.