New Delhi, April 20: Official circles are speculating on the Indian government nominating either Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia or Reserve Bank Governor Duvvuri Subbarao to the post of the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF’s current head, France’s Dominique Strauss Kahn, is scheduled to step down. Traditionally, an European holds the top position at the IMF while an American gets the top job at the World Bank. However, with India and China’s clout increasing in the two global multilateral institutions, the two nations are expected to play a bigger role in deciding on the top job. Officials said if China agreed to an Indian being made the IMF chief, India could nominate either of the economic mandarins to the top job. In case, China has its own ideas, India may go with South Africa’s former finance minister Trevor Manuel. The European-US lobby may put up its own candidate in Turkey’s Kemal Dervis, a former UNDP chief. Ahluwalia had a stint with the IMF as its first director of Independent Evaluation Office. Sources said if Ahluwalia was nominated for the IMF slot, it would also be a signal that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh felt he couldn’t be given the finance minister’s job. With three years left for the UPA to compete its term, sources said the government might not wish to put a technocrat in the finance minister’s job. The buzz over Ahluwalia and Subbarao grows at a time the full Planning Commission is meeting tomorrow. The Prime Minister wants to accelerate economic growth to 10 per cent during the Twelfth Five Year Plan, which starts next year, while Yojana Bhawan feels a 9-9.5 per cent expansion of the economy will be a good enough target.
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