What will the new RBI guv focus on Dec 14 meet?

The Centre’s proposal to call for governance reform in the RBI could, however, take a back seat, a source privy to the development said.

The first central board meeting of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday with Shaktikanta Das as governor is expected to focus on the liquidity situation in the financial system.

The Centre’s proposal to call for governance reform in the RBI could, however, take a back seat, a source privy to the development said.

“The governance issue (in the RBI) no longer holds immediate importance,” the source said.

The board may consider forming a committee to deliberate on the governance structure in RBI.

Earlier, the central government nominees on the RBI board - Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar and Economic Affairs Secretary S C Garg - had moved a proposal to consider governance reforms in RBI.

With a new governor at the helm, the government may adopt a wait-and-watch approach before pushing for governance reforms in RBI.

The government was upset with the way RBI took certain decisions, during former governor Urjit Patel’s tenure, in “closed door” meetings, including new norms for resolution of stressed assets set by the central bank in February, popularly known as the February 12 circular, according to sources.

The new governor is likely to take stock of the liquidity situation, especially related to non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), which showed signs of stress recently.

The government has petitioned the RBI to take measures to boost liquidity for NBFCs but the RBI is not in favour of a systemic intervention at present.

The board will be apprised of a recent decision taken by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Patel on the structure and the mandate of the committee to review the RBI's economic capital framework.

Sources said former RBI governor Bimal Jalan would head the panel and former RBI deputy governor Rakesh Mohan would be the co-chair.

After the panel is constituted, it is expected to submit its report in 90 days, the source said.

“The chairman of the panel has to agree to the mandate first. The committee will be notified soon,” the source added.

The panel may not hold discussions on the revaluation reserves held by the RBI in its ‘currency and gold revaluation reserves’, it is learnt.

It accounted for over 70 per cent out of the RBI’s total reserves at Rs 9.6 trillion at the end of June 2018.

The finance ministry is of the view that RBI has ‘excess capital’ in its reserves and that can be transferred to the central government.

The decision to form a panel was taken in the nine-hour long board meeting on November 19.

“The agenda items from the previous meeting will carry forward. There were discussions only on three to four issues,” the source said.

The RBI’s central board will also take note of the Board for Financial Supervision (BFS) meeting chaired by Patel on December 6.

The BFS was supposed to discuss the government’s proposal to bring some public sector banks out of the prompt corrective action (PCA) along with revision of rules.

However, the BFS didn’t hold discussions on it and instead reviewed the financial position of all public sector banks, sources said.

The government has proposed “drastic changes” in the rules framed to re-tune the composition of three committees of the RBI: Board for Financial Supervision (BFS), the Board for Payment and Settlement Systems (BPSS) and the Committee of the Central Board (CCB).

All three committees are chaired by the RBI Governor.

The government wanted more independent directors in forums, including the BFS, and had pushed for increasing the quorum in case of all the CCB and the BFS, sources said.

In return, RBI had also exchanged its notes with board members suggesting only minor tweaks in the norms.

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Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters