New Delhi: For a career bureaucrat who was equally at ease with three different finance ministers, the journey from North Block to Mint Street has often seen him adopting a non-confrontist approach and building consensus on tackling tricky issues.
Shaktikanta Das may be the right man in the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that has seen a governor quit for the first time in almost three decades amid tensions with the finance ministry over governance and autonomy issues.
Das, a 1980-batch IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, is a post graduate in history from the Delhi University but had mostly worked in economic and finance departments in the state and the centre during his 37-year-long tenure.
The man, who fielded questions on the day the Modi government made the shock announcement of junking overnight 86 per cent of the currency in circulation, first came to the finance ministry as a joint secretary in 2008 when P Chidambaram was the finance minister.
He stayed on as the reins were taken over by Pranab Mukherjee and was part of budget making for five consecutive years first as a joint secretary and then as an additional secretary.
Das was promoted as Secretary, Department of Chemicals and Fertilizers, in December 2013 but was brought back to the finance ministry as revenue secretary when the BJP-led government stormed to power in mid-2014.
He first played a part in the Modi government’s crackdown on black money and then building a consensus for the impending rollout of GST.
Moved to the economic affairs department in September 2015, he was in-charge when the government November 8, 2016, withdrew from circulation old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes.
From defending the shock announcement to spearheading the demonetisation drive that included the cumbersome process of printing and supplying new 500 and 2,000 rupees notes, his calm composure brought a sense of serenity to an otherwise chaotic situation.
Mild-mannered, Das is known to rarely lose his cool and focus mostly on looking at solutions through consensus rather than shoving a solution down — qualities that will come handy at the RBI which is having an unprecedented face-off with the finance ministry.
