Venkitaramanan RBI Governor who achieved the most in the least time [Video]

Former RBI governor S Venkitaramanan, who passed away on Saturday (November 18), stands out as the governor who spearheaded the Indian economy in her most turbulent hour and probably affected the most significant policy changes in the shortest of terms.

Venkitaramanan was governor at RBI for just two years — December 1990 to December 1992. He had just ended his IAS career in 1989 after serving as Finance Secretary from 1985 to 1989 when he was picked to steer the crisis-hit central bank.

Fiscal deficit had burgeoned through the mid to late eighties (ranging close to 9%) and was spilling into a large current account deficit. At the end of 1989, the country had only enough dollars to pay for two months of imports. That’s when the VP Singh govt. took charge post the 1989 elections and lasted for just 344 days – a turbulent 11 months during which there was a kidnapping of a …