Urjit Patel:
- Urjit Ravindra Patel is an Indian economist.
- In 2013, he was appointed as Deputy Governor of RBI for a period of three years.
- He served as the 24th Governor of the RBI from September 2016 to 10 December 2018. He succeeded Raghuram Rajan. During Urjit Patel’s tenure, the Government of India carried out demonetisation.
- According to sources, S. Vishwanathan, who is the senior most among the four Deputy Governors, has been given charge till the government finds a successor. Mr. Vishwanathan was appointed as Deputy Governor in July 2016.
Other RBI Governors to resign:
- Urjit Patel is the fifth RBI Governor in ‘Independent India’ to have resigned from his post before his term was over.
- The first RBI Governor Benegal Rama Rau (1949 – 1957) resigned because of his differences with then Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari.
- The other RBI governors to resign are KR Puri (1975 – 1977), RN Malhotra (1985 – 1988) and Bimal Jalan (1997 – 2003)
- However, the precedent for an RBI Governor resigning was set before Independence, when the first Governor, Sir Osborn Smith resigned in 1937 due to differences with the Finance Member of the Viceroy’s Council.
