The appointment of Subhash Chandra Garg, former finance secretary in the Narendra Modi government, as the advisor to Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy for resource mobilisation, has raised many eyebrows.
Garg, a 1983-batch IAS officer of Rajasthan cadre, took voluntary retirement from his service, after he was unceremoniously shunted out of the Union finance ministry by the Modi government in October 2019 for taking independent decisions, was given the posting as advisor to the Andhra Pradesh chief minister in the state finance ministry on Sunday night.
He has been entrusted with the task of resource mobilisation for the state, which is facing severe financial crisis.
Garg has an illustrative career of more than 36 years in areas such as Finance, Investments, International Business, Fintech etc.
He was Secretary Budget and Secretary Expenditure of the Government of Rajasthan and was appointed the Head of the Finance Department, the Principal Secretary of Finance of the Government of Rajasthan at a very young age in 2008.
Later, he was appointed as a Director in the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance in the year 2000 where, for a period of over 3 years, he handled the matters connected with the World Bank Group and the IMF.
Garg was India’s Executive Director in the World Bank Group for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka from November, 2014 to July, 2017.
He made signal contribution in refashioning several financing policies of the World Bank.
He also played pivotal role in Forward Look discussions and negotiations which defined the 2030 vision for the World Bank Group.
Garg also served as the member of the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
He was also instrumental in seeing through that the RBI surpluses are transferred to the Government. He also served on the Board of LIC.
He was also India’s Governor on the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Alternate Governor for the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and New Development Bank (NDB) while serving as Secretary, Economic Affairs.
However, Garg had his own controversies. After taking VRS from the IAS, he claimed that he was an “independent-minded officer” who implemented bold and unconventional decisions that may have not kept his bosses in good humour.
“It might be a little strange, but all my postings as chief of finance departments in the state and at the centre ended little bit unceremoniously,” he said.
Garg was shifted out of the financial ministry by the Modi government after a controversial budget proposal to raise sovereign bond overseas in external currencies received a lot of criticism from many economists and former central bank governors.
Garg also stridently pushed for a one-time transfer of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) reserves to the government in the meetings of the Bimal Jalan committee looking into the capital economic framework.