Rangarajan may head TFC, Kelkar advisor to FM, Narayan finance sec

The Union government is expected to name Dr C. Rangarajan, Governor of Andhra Pradesh, as the new chairman of the Twelfth Finance Commission...

The Union government is expected to name Dr C. Rangarajan, Governor of Andhra Pradesh, as the new chairman of the Twelfth Finance Commission. Dr Rangarajan is a former governor of Reserve Bank of India and a former member of the Planning Commission.

The Union government is Constitutionally required to appoint a five-member finance commission once every five years to determine the distribution of finances between the Centre and the States.

The government has also decided to invite Dr Vijay Kelkar, India’s executive director on the board of the International Monetary Fund, to return to the finance ministry as advisor to Finance Minister Jaswant Singh.

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Dr Kelkar may be given the rank of minister of state, imitating the precedent set by Dr Raja J. Chelliah during Dr Manmohan Singh’s tenure as finance minister.

It is also learnt that the finance minister has decided to revert to the earlier practice of designating the secretary, economic affairs in the finance ministry as Union finance secretary.

The present revenue secretary Dr S. Narayan, the senior-most official in the Union finance ministry and among the senior-most civil servants in the country, will be made the next finance secretary.

It is also reliably learnt that the Union government had debated the idea of inducting a noted economist as secretary economic affairs and dropped the idea, preferring instead to go by seniority.

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The professional expertise in the ministry will be inducted through Dr Kelkar’s appointment and the appointment of the chief economic advisor and one or two economic advisors.

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