PM wants more names for CEA post

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked the finance ministry to cast the net wider to hunt for a new chief economic adviser (CEA), a crucial post that has been lying vacant for 13 months now.
Although several names had done the rounds earlier, the view in the government is that same candidates crop up every time there is a discussion on who will be the chief economist.In the past, several names such as US-based economists Arvind Subramanian and Arvind Panagariya, economist Bibek Debroy, Harvard University professor Gita Gopinath, IMF's Siddharth Tiwari and Ajay Chibber, who recently resigned as the head of the Independent Evaluation Office, have done the rounds.
In fact, some media reports had gone to the extent of suggesting that Subramanian's appointment was a formality, although government officials had denied any such move.
The finance ministry has had to manage without a full-time CEA since Raghuram Rajan moved to the RBI in September 2013.