RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das presented Governor of the Year Award

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, who was chosen for the prestigious Governor of the Year Award 2023 earlier this year, has said that central banks at the core of monetary and financial systems have been called to do “heavy lifting” well beyond their traditional mandate. Das was conferred the award by 'Central Banking' which definitively covers and analyses issues around the world’s central banks and financial regulators following the summer meetings of the organisation in London on Tuesday. When the award was announced in March, the organisers said that the Reserve Bank of India Governor is being honoured because he has cemented critical reforms, overseen world-leading payments innovation and steered India through difficult times with a steady hand and well-crafted turn of phrase. 

 It was stated at the event that Das cemented critical reforms, oversaw world-leading payment innovation, and steered India through difficult times with a steady hand and well-crafted turn of phrase. Das was also called a ‘voice of calm amid the fear’ during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Shaktikanta Das’s tenure since 2018 has been marked by a series of grave challenges, starting with the collapse of a major non-banking firm, moving through the first and second waves of the coronavirus, and then, in 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its inflationary impact”, the organizers of the award said. The organizers also touched upon the September, 2018 collapse of the Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS), which had led to a liquidity crunch in the Indian banking system. They also added that apart from the same, a handful of other firms collapsed in the months later, including the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank, which had lent a significant amount to an infrastructure finance firm that went into the doldrums.