Reserve Bank of India deputy governor Vepa Kamesam today got his second extension for three months. With this, Kamesam has become the first DG to hold the position even after crossing 62.
Kamesam's original tenure came to an end on June 30 but he had got extension till September 23 till he completes 62, which is the retirement age for deputy governors.
Known for his passion for clean note policy, Kamesam -- a former managing director in charge of national banking in State Bank of India -- took over as DG on July 1, 2001, initially for a period of two years.
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His portfolio includes exchange control, currency management, information technology, human resource development, rural credit and export finance.
His most important contribution is cleaning up of the system from dirty notes. On an average about 45 billion pieces of notes are in circluation. About 70 per cent of the notes were dirty when Kamesam took over. This has been reduced to 20 per cent now.
He has done this by installing currency verification & processing system (CVPS) at 18 currency issue offices of the Reserve Bank.
These machines can count about 20,000 pieces of notes per hour, identifies dirty notes and destroys them automatically.
This is against manual note counting of 3,000 pieces per day.
The installation of these machines has transformed the stocks of the 4300 currency chests run by banks which were choc-a-block with dirty notes till recently. The capital investment for the project was to the tune of Rs 150 crore.
The installation also rendered a big chunk of the currency management employees of the RBI surplus.
To take care of this, the central bank introduced an optional early retirement scheme in August.
The on-tap scheme has so far attracted 3,100 applications -- about 11 per cent of the total employee strength. With 28,000-strong work force, the Reserve Bank is the world's most over-manned central bank.
Under Kamesam's stewardship, the exchange control department of the RBI has practically removed all restrictions on current account transactions.
The ceiling on spending of foreign currency for travel, education and medical purposes has been raised manifold.
Non-resident Indians (NRIs) are now allowed to repatraite interest income, dividend, porperty rentals and even pensions.