CEA Arvind Subramanian gets 1-year extension: Fin Min

Mumbai: The Finance Ministry on Saturday put to rest speculations surrounding chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian's stint as government's man Friday. His tenure has been extended by one year and now he will continue to serve the government till September 2018.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley confirmed the development in a tweet: "CEA Dr Arvind Subramanian will continue for one more year after completion of his 3 year tenure on 16th October, 2017."

Subramanian had assumed the office of India's CEA in October 2014 after the Modi government picked him up out of many aspirants for the coveted job. He has been quite vocal in his stand on RBI's monetary policy and spoken openly about the need for a rate cut. He has criticised the RBI for not going for  monetary easing in its policy meet at a time when the economic indicators were conducive for the same.

The post of the CEA, like that of RBI governor, lasts for a fixed tenure of three years which can be extended as and when the government wants. It's one of the crucial government institutions that are important for monitoring performances of various key sectors.

With this decision, it seems, the Modi government that aims to continue with steps for achieving a fast-paced economic growth does not want lose out on the continuity in economic recovery.

As CEA, Subramanian authored government's Economic Survey reports for three years and also came up with solutions to tame India's whopping bad loans worth Rs 6 lakh crore. He has supported setting up of a robust mechanism for taming the rising bad loans. Some estimates put bad loans in the range of Rs 8 to 11 lakh crore, that includes NPAs of private sector banks also.