Poonam Gupta takes charge as RBI Deputy Governor, to join MPC in June
May 2, 2025
Poonam Gupta will oversee Monetary Policy, Research and Financial Stability departments at RBI and joins MPC as India debates targeting core versus headline inflation
Poonam Gupta has assumed charge as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), where she will oversee key departments including Monetary Policy, Economic and Policy Research, Statistics and Information Management, and Financial Stability, among others.
She will also be part of the monetary policy committee (MPC) in the June meeting. MPC has already cut policy rates by 50 basis points (bps) from 6.5 per cent to 6 per cent.
In April, Gupta was appointed as Deputy Governor by the Centre, following the end of Michael Patra’s term in January this year. Patra had previously headed the Monetary Policy Department, and after his departure, Deputy Governor M. Rajeshwar Rao temporarily took charge of the department.
Prior to Gupta’s appointment as Deputy Governor, she was Director General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research.
Gupta has a PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland, USA, and a Master’s in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University.
Gupta, who specialises in macroeconomics and issues related to the Emerging Market Economies, takes up her new role at a time when there is a debate raging if the RBI should target core inflation instead of headline inflation. Headline inflation spikes mainly due to food prices and it is argued by some that monetary policy tools are not effective to have any impact on supply-side issues.
Gupta, in an August 2024 joint NCAER paper with Barry Eichengreen, Distinguished Professor of Economics and Political Science at University of California, Berkeley, argued that evidence suggested that the inflation targeting framework in the last eight years pointed to improved outcomes with inflation becoming lower and less volatile, inflation expectations better anchored, and the transmission of monetary policy more effective.
[The Business Standard]
