New Delhi, Dec 29 (DHNS): Viral Acharya, 42, of New York University’s Stern School of Business, was appointed the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India – a move seen as intended to strengthen the central bank’s expertise in revitalising the country’s banking system.

Acharya’s appointment was cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. He will have a three-year tenure. He will fill the post that fell vacant after Urjit Patel was made RBI governor to succeed Raghuram Rajan from September 4.

The other three deputy governors are S S Mundra, N S Vishwanathan and R Gandhi. Acharya, like Rajan, is an academic who is rated as an authority in the world of financial research.

His appointment is expected to fill the vacuum felt in the RBI since Rajan’s departure. Officials said his entry would bring in the global perspective, which Rajan always brought to the decision-making process.

In fact, Acharya has written papers along with Rajan supporting the independence of central banks for making them “democratically accountable, yet be operationally independent from political influence”.

Acharya fits into the plan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making the banks more robust. As a financial system expert, he has been vocal about the need for a clean-up of the Indian banking system.

Acharya has also been pushing for efficient ways of running PSU banks. He believes that the government’s financial backing of banks provides wrong incentives.