Rangarajan cleared for Rajya Sabha

Chakravarthy Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, is headed for the Rajya Sabha, after a high-level clearance of his name this evening.

Rangarajan, a former Reserve Bank of India governor, is tipped to get a Cabinet berth in the United Progressive Alliance government.

Rangarajan was the chairman of the Twelfth Finance Commission, whose recommendations were implemented from April this year.

In 2001, he was appointed the governor of Andhra Pradesh by the National Democratic Alliance government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Prior to that he was the governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1992 to 1997 after having served as a deputy governor for over a decade. During his stint as the Central Bank governor, changes in exchange rate management were introduced and a unified exchange rate was established.

He has also served as a member of the Planning Commission. The government recently appointed a committee led by Rangarajan to look at the pricing in the petroleum sector.