I. G. Patel

Indraprasad Gordhanbhai Patel GCSI
I. G. Patel, c. 1980s
14th Governor of Reserve Bank of India
In office 1 December 1977 – 1982
Personal details
Born	11 November 1924 Vadodara, India
Died	17 July 2005 Vadodara, India
Resting place	Vadodara, India
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara
Occupation	Indian Administrative Service officer (IAS)

Indraprasad Gordhanbhai Patel GCSI (11 November 1924 – 17 July 2005)^[1][2] popularly known as I. G. Patel, was the fourteenth Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1 December 1977 to 15 September 1982.^[3]

Career

Patel was an eminent economist. He was Secretary in the Ministry of Finance.^[1] He became the Deputy Administrator of the UNDP. Later, he was appointed as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.^[1] The Indian Rupee notes of 1000, 5000 and 10,000 denomination and the gold auctions were demonetized during his tenure (he later featured on a special commemorative 1000 rupee note). However, the 1000 notes had to be reintroduced later.^[4]

After retiring from the Reserve Bank, he became the Director of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) between 1982–84,^[5] after which he assumed the Directorship of The London School of Economics and Political Science (1984–1990).^[1] According to Meghnad Desai, Baron Desai, his distinguished directorship saw the school's reputation excel to being that of the finest economics school in the world, especially enhancing LSE in India, and Asia as a whole. Later, he taught at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara.^[6]

In 1991 Patel was requested by then Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao to assume the responsibility of the finance minister of India, but this offer was declined by him.^[7] He was bestowed the Padma Vibhushan award in 1991 for his furthering of the field of economic science.^[8] Indraprasad Gordhanbhai Patel was known as Baba 'IG' from his childhood days in Vadodara, then the capital of the princely state ruled by the Gaekwads of Baroda, where he was born. The current I.G. Patel chair is Nicholas Stern.

References

Governors of the Reserve Bank of India Osborne Smith (1935–37) James Braid Taylor (1937–43) C. D. Deshmukh (1943–49) Benegal Rama Rau (1949–57) K. G. Ambegaonkar (1957–57) H. V. R. Iyengar (1957–62) P. C. Bhattacharya (1962–67) Lakshmi Kant Jha (1967–70) B. N. Adarkar (1970–70) S. Jagannathan (1970–75) N. C. Sen Gupta (1975–75) K. R. Puri (1975–77) M. Narasimham (1977–77) I. G. Patel (1977–82) Manmohan Singh (1982–85) Amitav Ghosh (1985–85) R. N. Malhotra (1985–90) S. Venkitaramanan (1990–92) C. Rangarajan (1992–97) Bimal Jalan (1997–2003) Y. Venugopal Reddy (2003–08) Duvvuri Subbarao (2008–13) Raghuram Rajan (2013–present)