Indranil Bhattacharyya to replace Rajiv Ranjan in RBI MPC

Mumbai: The RBI board on Friday cleared the nomination of executive director Indranil Bhattacharyya as an ex-officio member of the monetary policy committee (MPC), which sets interest rates. He replaces Rajiv Ranjan ahead of the October 2025 policy meet.

Bhattacharyya, a JNU economics postgraduate, has nearly three decades of central banking experience. He joined RBI in 1996 after a brief stint at the Indian Institute of Capital Markets, worked at the Qatar Central Bank as an economic expert from 2009 to 2014, before returning to RBI.

In a 2015 paper he co-wrote, Bhattacharya argued that the central bank’s decisions strongly influence financial markets, but also that the RBI should pay close attention to signals coming from bond yields and borrowing costs for companies. He suggested looking at all policy tools together rather than just one rate, noted that markets and the RBI influence each other, and stressed that keeping the financial system stable is as important as controlling inflation.

An earlier paper he co-authored on monetary policy signals found that markets respond more strongly when the RBI tightens policy than when it eases, and that instruments like the cash reserve ratio and bank rate significantly shape money flow and interest rates. The study also noted that policy transmission is uneven, as different tools have limits and markets react differently over time.

The six-member MPC has three RBI representatives — governor Sanjay Malhotra (chairperson), deputy governor M Rajeshwar Rao and Bhattacharyya — and three external members: economist Saugata Bhattacharya, ISID chief Nagesh Kumar, and Delhi School of Economics director Ram Singh.

The RBI board, which met in Lucknow under Malhotra’s chairmanship, reviewed the global and domestic economic landscape, financial market developments, and institutional functioning. Directors including deputy governors T Rabi Sankar, Swaminathan J, and Poonam Gupta. Other attendees included DFS secretary Nagaraju Maddirala, DEA secretary Anuradha Thakur, Satish Marathe, Revathy Iyer, Sachin Chaturvedi, Anand Mahindra, Pankaj Patel and Ravindra Dholakia.

The meeting took place amid heightened risks from global trade and geopolitics. A 25% US tariff on Indian exports such as textiles, leather, gems and seafood from late August is expected to shave 20-30 basis points off GDP growth, RBI estimates. Concerns over energy security linked to Russian oil supplies also weighed on discussions.



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