The government is reported to be thinking of conducting interviews for the selection of the fourth Deputy Governor (DG) in the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) from out of a shortlist. There will be enough information available on the candidates and if there are criteria with appropriate weights, it should be possible to make the selection without any interview. In the normal course of work, the appointing authorities must have already interacted with the candidates on a number of occasions in the past. Each one of which could be considered an interview in itself to make judgements about their relative merits. The quality of appointment is important in upholding the dignity of the post. Nondescript appointments lower the prestige of the office. We had a few instances where the DGs (‘insiders’) had spent their entire lives in the administrative departments of the bank dealing with such clerical and easy matters as personnel, deadstock, (no livestock!), stationery, premises, exchange control, etc, taking no interest in acquiring knowledge of central banking. One of them had a fantastic career of eventually becoming a DG rising from a low rank by virtue of seniority (read “the passing of time”) without any worthwhile educational qualification! In the printed list of officers of the RBI, a dash appeared against his name in the column on his educational qualification. In the bank’s publications, the convention is that a dash stands for ‘nil’ or ‘negligible’. It was during the time of emergency.
The absurdity of the interview system reached a climax when former Sebi chief M Damodaran was asked to present himself for just the renewal of his appointment for another term. Here was someone who had already distinguished himself in his current appointment. Besides he had the added distinction of stemming the rot in the Unit Trust of India (UTI) after it had reached the nadir of its existence thanks to serial mismanagement. Rightly, Damodaran refused to appear for the interview.
I learnt of a similar episode while visiting Washington DC. The President of the World Bank invited a number of economists to appear for interviews for the post of chief economic adviser and vice-president. Among them were two ex-governors of the RBI. One, I G Patel, who took the right stand, that he would accept the post, only if he was invited by the World Bank, but would not appear for any interview.
The other appeared for the interview and was not selected.
A Seshan, via email
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