RBI ex-Guv enlightens students at GL-UB Finance Conference

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai organised its 12th Great Lakes-Union Bank Finance Conference. The event was held virtually with Dr Duvvuri Subbarao, 22nd Governor of Reserve Bank of India and Former Finance Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, delivering a talk on ‘Policymaking dilemmas during turbulent times’. At the event, Dr Suresh Ramanathan, Dean, Great Lakes Institute of Management said, “Subbarao was a master of crisis having shepherded the country and its economic policy through one of the worst crises the world had ever known. What happened in 2008-2009, finds some form of repetition in the events of the last two years. A different form of crisis, but a crisis nonetheless. Various sectors of the economy have been affected, the policy as a whole has been impacted.”

Subbarao shared his experiences with students and narrated how he began his career at RBI in the midst of an economic crisis. He said that the five major dilemmas he faced were the global financial crisis, managing monetary policy, managing communication, managing the exchange rate and managing regulation. One of the main challenges he said was, “The market was not offering me credibility. I as an inexperienced governor lead the Reserve Bank through this extraordinary crisis.”

He said, “The mandate of the RBI is to maintain a balance and deliver on Price stability, that is, low and steady inflation and at the same time support growth. The instrument available now is repo rate.”