Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) to the Finance Ministry Arvind Subramanian has been given a one-year extension and will continue in office till October 2018.
Subramanian’s three-year term was to end on October 16, 2017.
“His first three year tenure ends on October 16 this year. He has been given an extension for one year. A formal announcement will be made soon,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.
The extension of Subramanian comes at a time when the government is working on measures to support economic growth, after GDP growth fell to 5.7 per cent in April-June – the lowest in at least five quarters.
Sources said Subramanian had been keen to leave for the US, where his family resides, but was requested to stay back.
He is currently on leave for “public service” from his position as the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington.
Arvind Subramanian had taken over as CEA in October 2014, soon after the NDA came to power.
The office of the CEA had remained vacant for over a year after Raghuram Rajan was appointed Reserve Bank of India Governor in September 2013.
Subramanian has, over the last three years, brought new ideas in public discourse such as the JAM–Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile–trinity. He was closely involved in drafting the Goods and Services Tax Act and had also authored the ‘Report on the Revenue Neutral Rate and Structure of Rates for the GST’ in December 2015.
He has also put up various ideas for discussion at the policy and popular level such as his recent proposal for Universal Basic Income.
