RBI needs to be made more independent, accountable to people

.........This was exactly what RBI’s Ujit Patel Committee prescribed in its recommendations proposing the setting up of a Committee of Wise men where the RBI governor would have a vote and could also be overruled. Under the present autonomy dispensation the right vested in the governor to take the final call makes it less democratic over the decision of an appropriate committee of multi-disciplinary professional experts. This can ensure that the government of the day doesn’t make arbitrary demands on the functioning of RBI.............

Read - Moneylife

Copied below is my response to a report of September 15, 2010 in the Economic Times. Being reproduced to draw attention to the fact that the focus of this article is on an issue which has been neglected for years and a meaningful debate at this juncture is most appropriate:

“This refers to the report ‘It’s not over, RBI again writes to finmin on autonomy’ (ET, September 15). Of late, the finance ministry has been having problems with almost all regulators. It is not the other way round. Because of RBI’s premier position, the issues in which the central bank is involved get media attention. The proposal to super-impose a body to oversee the functioning or coordinate among various regulatory bodies and give it a permanent and legal status had ab initio met with the response that government is finding an alternate route to encroach on the autonomy of individual regulators. Subsequent developments have only proved the initial fears right. 

The sound health of the financial sector can be ensured only by allowing all regulators and supervisors in the sector including RBI, SEBI and IRDA to feel the freedom to perform their mandated responsibilities efficiently, within the statutory framework. Presently, their well-intended policy initiatives and even administrative actions are being pre-audited and guided by a Finance Ministry which itself is suffocating under compulsions of coalition politics.  

PM who knows the harm strained relationships between regulators and FM can cause to the economy must immediately intervene and try for a breakthrough. If the buck doesn’t stop there, we will see more and more of controversies like the present one, capable of destroying the gains made by the Indian economy, mostly during the period Dr Manmohan Singh was in charge. 

- M.G.Warrier