The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has a female lieutenant governor (DG) after a gap of about 14 years. The government has appointed Poonam Gupta, a vacant post after Michael Patra took office in mid-January 2025, to RBI DG.
Gupta is currently the director of the National Council on Applied Economic Research (NCAER), an economic policy think tank. She is also a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Committee. To the convener of the advisory committee 16th Finance Committee. Her appointment is widely expected to reduce the reporate by 25 basis points ahead of the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting.
In the last 90 years of its existence, so far, the central bank has only three female lieutenant governors: KJ Udeshi (June 10, 2003 to October 12, 2005), Shyamala Gopinath (September 21, 2004 to September 8, 2009), and Usha Thorat (November 10, 2005 to November 9, 2010). All three female DGs were career RBI officers. Gupta, 55, will be the fourth woman appointed to the DG.
Commenting on Gupta’s appointment, Madhavi Arora, Chief Economist at Emkay Global Financial Services, said: “I have a very good understanding of the macrocycle, and she can get a better grasp of the underlying economic development.
Madhan Subnavis, the Chief Economist at Baroda Bank, observed that women were heading towards the important monetary policy and economic and policy research sector for the first time.
Powerful research
“She is an economics scholar and association practitioner. There’s her advantage. In this particular post, all the research that comes out of the different departments of RBI come out as input based on strong research, so we need someone with a heartbeat. She’s a person who’s fully gripping it.
