The former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Viral Acharya said that his exit was a “form of dissent” in the wake of ties between the central bank and the government. He quit six months before the date of his term was scheduled to end in July 2019.
Viral Acharya said that exits should interpret as a form of voice and also as a form of dissent and it should not interpret as a problem. In his view, he says that even though the Indian economy is no longer the nationalize era economy, the bureaucracy and the government are still stuck in the old mode of functioning. According to him, it was because of the push by the former’s for opening liquidity and disregarding long- term goals the conflict that arose between the central bank and the government.
The former central bank official said that they don’t have any open debate about the country’s fiscal situation.
In January 2017 Viral Acharya was joined as a Deputy Governor in the RBI, while at that time Urjit Patel was the governor. He was in charge of monetary policy which vested with the right to make decisions on the interest rate, among other functions. He was supposed to serve a three-year term as the deputy governor at the age of 42.
At New York University’s Stern School of Business, Acharya worked as the CV Starr Professor of Economics before joining the RBI. In October 2018 at a function that includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, Acharya sparked with a powerful speech that Modi does not respect the central bank’s independence and warned of disastrous consequences. He compared the government’s economic policies by using a cricket analogy as a T20 match in contrast to the long-term planning by the central bank, which Acharya called a test match. Two months after his speech Urjit Patel his bose resigned in December 2018 without completing his term as central bank governor.
The reason why Acharya resigned early from RBI is that the issues that juncture required him to take a stand.
