• The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Urjit Patel, economist and former Reserve Bank Governor, to the post of executive director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for a period of three years.

• He would replace K.V. Subramanian, whose services were terminated by the government six months ahead of his three-year tenure. The termination took effect on April 30, 2025.

Who is Urjit Patel?

• Born in 1963, Urjit Patel completed his Bachelor’s in Economics from the London School of Economics and obtained an M Phil degree from Oxford University in 1986. He completed his PhD in Economics from Yale University in 1990.

• Thereafter, he joined the IMF and served there from 1990 to 1995, covering the US, India, the Bahamas and Myanmar desks. 

• He served as a Consultant to the Ministry of Finance from 1998 to 2001. 

• He also had other assignments in the public and private sectors, including those with Reliance Industries, IDFC Ltd, MCX Ltd, and Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation.

• Patel served as a Deputy Governor of RBI from 2013 to 2016 handling monetary policy, economic policy research, statistics and information management, deposit insurance, communication and Right to Information.

• He took over as the 24th Governor of the RBI in 2016, succeeding Raghuram Rajan.

• In December 2018, he resigned from the position.

• Patel served as Vice President for Investment Operations (Region 1) at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) from January 2022 to January 2024.

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

• The IMF was conceived in July 1944 at the United Nations Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire, US. 

• The 44 countries in attendance sought to build a framework for international economic cooperation and avoid repeating the competitive currency devaluations that contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

• The IMF’s primary mission is to ensure the stability of the international monetary system — the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries and their citizens to transact with each other.

• Today, its membership embraces 191 countries, with staff drawn from 150 nations.

• India is a founder member of the IMF.

• Its headquarters is situated in Washington, D.C. 

• The IMF is accountable to its member country governments. 

• The Board of Governors, the highest decision-making body of the IMF, consists of one governor and one alternate governor for each member country. The governor is appointed by the member country and is usually the minister of finance or the governor of the central bank.

• The Executive Board is responsible for conducting the day-to-day business of the IMF. It is composed of 25 directors, who are elected by member countries or by groups of countries, and the managing director, who serves as its chairman. The Board usually meets several times each week. It carries out its work largely on the basis of papers prepared by IMF management and staff.

• The executive board of the IMF is composed of 25 directors (executive directors or EDs) elected by the member countries or groups of countries.

• India is part of a four-country constituency, along with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan, as its members.