Urjit Patel served as the 24th Governor of RBI (Reserve Bank of India). He was recently appointed as the Vice President of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Urjit Patel

He was born in Kenya. In 2018, he resigned as RBI governor. His resignation came in as a shock to the country. He resigned after serving for two years. He cited personal reasons for his resignation.

Career

• In 1990, he joined the International Monetary fund.
• In 1995, he went on deputation to the RBI. In RBI he played an advisory role.
• Between 2000 and 2004 he worked with several high-level committees. This included Task Forces on Direct Taxes, Group of Ministers on Telecom Matters, PM Task force on infrastructure, high level expert group on civil and defence services, expert group on state electricity boards, etc.
• In 2013, he became the deputy governor of RBI.
• In 2016, he became the Governor of RBI.

Controversies around his resignation

Experts believe that Patel was forced to resign as RBI governor. The Government of India wanted the RBI to provide more money to solve its fiscal deficit issues. Patel did not agree citing long term financial stability issues.

AIIB

The AIIB was established in 2015. The AIIB has approved more loans for India than any other member. China is the first largest and India, the second largest share holders in the bank. Japan and US are not the members of the bank.

India – AIIB

The AIIB has funded 6.7 billion USD worth projects to India. Currently it is helping India in several of its green projects and also in its COVID initiatives. India had applied for loan in AIIB and Asia Development Bank (ADB) to procure 667 million COVID doses. ADB is expected to lend 1.5 billion USD of under its APVAX initiative. APVAX is Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility. AIIB is to lend 500 million USD. In 2021, AIIB approved 356.67 million USD for the expansion of Chennai metro rail system.

By: Brijesh Kumar