Governors of the Reserve Bank of India – RBI Governors List
RBI is the short name of the Reserve Bank of India which is India’s central bank.
The RBI Governor is the Chief Executive Officer of the Reserve Bank of India and also the ex-officio chairperson of its Central Board of Directors.
RBI issues the Indian Rupee currency notes and the notes have the signature of the current RBI Governor. e.g. If the note has been issued in 2018, then notes would contain the signature of the Governor of that time.
Generally, the term of office typically runs for three years, but in some cases, can be extended for 2 years.
Here, in this blog post, I will be listing out all the Governors of the Reserve Bank of India till date along with their Term Start and Term End dates.
So, here we go…
List of All the RBI Governors
| Sl No. | Governor Name | Term Start | Term End | Days in Office |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Osborne Smith | 1-April-1935 | 30-June-1937 | 821 days |
| 2 | James Braid Taylor | 1-July-1937 | 17-February-1943 | 2057 days |
| 3 | C. D. Deshmukh | 11-August-1943 | 30-May-1949 | 2150 days |
| 4 | Benegal Rama Rau | 1-July-1949 | 14-January-1957 | 2754 days |
| 5 | K. G. Ambegaonkar | 14-January-1957 | 28-February-1957 | 45 days |
| 6 | H. V. R. Iyengar | 1-March-1957 | 28-February-1962 | 1825 days |
| 7 | P. C. Bhattacharya | 1-March-1962 | 30-June-1967 | 1947 days |
| 8 | Lakshmi Kant Jha | 1-July-1967 | 3-May-1970 | 1037 days |
| 9 | B. N. Adarkar | 4-May-1970 | 15-June-1970 | 42 days |
| 10 | Sarukkai Jagannathan | 16-June-1970 | 19-May-1975 | 1798 days |
| 11 | N. C. Sen Gupta | 19-May-1975 | 19-August-1975 | 92 days |
| 12 | K. R. Puri | 20-August-1975 | 2-May-1977 | 621 days |
| 13 | M. Narasimham | 3-May-1977 | 30-November-1977 | 211 days |
| 14 | I. G. Patel | 1-December-1977 | 15-September-1982 | 1749 days |
| 15 | Manmohan Singh | 16-September-1982 | 14-January-1985 | 851 days |
| 16 | Amitav Ghosh | 15-January-1985 | 4-February-1985 | 20 days |
| 17 | R. N. Malhotra | 4-February-1985 | 22-December-1990 | 2147 days |
| 18 | S. Venkitaramanan | 22-December-1990 | 21-December-1992 | 730 days |
| 19 | C. Rangarajan | 22-December-1992 | 21-November-1997 | 1795 days |
| 20 | Bimal Jalan | 22-November-1997 | 6-September-2003 | 2114 days |
| 21 | Y. Venugopal Reddy | 6-September-2003 | 5-September-2008 | 1826 days |
| 22 | D. Subbarao | 5-September-2008 | 4-September-2013 | 1825 days |
| 23 | Raghuram Rajan | 4-September-2013 | 4-September-2016 | 1096 days |
| 24 | Urjit Patel | 4-September-2016 | 11-December-2018 | 828 days |
| 25 | Shaktikanta Das | 12-December-2018 | Current | — |
Conclusion
The very first officeholder of the Reserve Bank of India was the British banker named Osborne Smith. And, C. D. Deshmukh was the very first Indian Governor of the RBI.
Benegal Rama Rau is the longest-serving Governor for 2754 days term (over 7 years) and Amitav Ghosh is the shortest-serving for 20 days term.
That’s it.
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