From An Eye On Markets To Steering The Economy, Key Aides Who Kept It Going For PM Modi In NDA 2.0

He has since handpicked a band of bureacrats and technocrats -- trusted and empowered -- to whom he could leave the affairs of the government and the economy. While in the first part of this series, we profiled bureaucrats who anchored public policy in general spheres, this concluding part focuses on people who have been at the core of managing the economy.    

Shaktikanta Das: Mr Dependable

Shaktikanta Das first came into prominence after the demonetisation exercise of November 2016, which cancelled all high-value notes in circulation overnight. The Modi government fielded Das to answer all the media's hardball questions. 

Two years later, he found himself in the RBI governor's hot seat after Urjit Patel resigned citing “personal reasons”. Unlike the flamboyant Raghuram Rajan or the firmly assertive Patel, Das's USP was his ability to work in a low-key manner.

After all, he had successfully served under three very different finance ministers, P Chidambaram, Pranab Mukherjee, and Arun Jaitley, with quite a few mandarins and politicians dubbing him "Mr Dependable". 

When the Covid-19 outbreak hit the world debilitating economies, Das came into his own as a central banker. He had two stresses, one, to secure India from the ill-effects of a global financial shock and two, to prevent a meltdown of the domestic economy. 

He chose to cut the policy rate and kept it constant for two years to help businesses and individual borrowers hit by a cash crunch. On the other hand, he came up with packages for industry to spur growth.

Das got a second term in 2021 and in May 2022, announced a surprise 40 basis point interest hike, the first in two years as prices rose in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Since then, he has steadily raised interest rates to the current 6.5 per cent to fight inflation. 

Whether Mr Dependable wins a third RBI term, which would be a first for an RBI governor, or is moved elsewhere depends on where his brand of “silent work” is needed.

TV Somanathan: Understanding The Boss

TV Somanathan, 58, has been the Expenditure Secretary since December 2019. Due to his seniority, the 1987-batch Tamil Nadu cadre officer doubles up as the country’s Finance Secretary. 

A close confidant of PM Modi, he had worked as a joint secretary at the PMO and has a reputation of understanding "what the boss wants". 

A brilliant student during his college days, he is known for his deep understanding of contemporary social and economic issues, which he put to good use while running the finance department of Tamil Nadu. Somanathan holds a doctoral degree in economics from Calcutta University.

In Tamil Nadu, Somanathan was among those instrumental in implementing the 2016 freebies scheme. The scheme, which, among other things, gave a television set free to poor households, is believed to have changed the quality of lives of citizens, including improving farming practices and increasing literacy while reducing the fertility rate.

At the Centre, he advised the Prime Minister against a cash handout to the poor after the Covid-19 outbreak. His argument was that such a massive programme would be impossible to sustain.

A mild-mannered officer who loves spending time with his family and listening to Carnatic music, Somanathan was also one of the architects of the now withdrawn farm laws after a farmers' agitation in North India. Despite the setback, Somanathan’s reputation as a super-performer and an ideas man remains intact.

With a little more than a year to go before he becomes due for superannuation, Somanathan could have a go at the Cabinet Secretary's job in the event Gauba, the incumbent, doesn't get another extension when his term ends in August. Gauba's tenure was extended for a third straight year after his superannuation in 2021. Somanathan is due for superannuation in May next year.    

Madhabi Puri Buch: Out Of The Box 

The first woman to head the Securities and Exchange Board of India, Madhabi Puri Buch is known as a no-nonsense banker-turned-stock market regulator. 

Buch who was appointed Sebi chairperson two years ago, was not the usual kind of men and women that the Modi government takes on for key jobs. She was not from the civil services.

In fact, she broke another glass ceiling when she took the top job in the powerful regulator as she was the first private sector banker to take on the job.

However, what she had in common with other PM’s men and women was that she thought outside of the box, and like many of them she had attended the elite St Stephen’s College and IIM Ahmedabad. 

At a seminar last year, Buch revealed that she was working with fund houses to see how a Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) of amounts as low as Rs 250 can be made viable business propositions to boost the industry in a manner similar to FMCG major’s move in earlier decades coming up with shampoo and other products sachets in small quantities.

The whole idea stemmed from a need to shore up Indian investments in domestic stock markets to make the country less dependent on Foreign Institutional Investors for liquidity flows.

Among the measures she took as head of Sebi was the introduction of an optional T+0 settlement which will allow investors to settle their stock market trades on the same day. 

Before joining Sebi, Buch had worked in the corporate world with organisations like ICICI Bank, ICICI Securities and ICICI Home Finance, Greater Pacific Capital, and New Development Bank (BRICS) in Shanghai.

People who worked with her say that she believes in solutions based on evidence-based thinking and hard data crunching and that trait along with her ability to think out of the box has made her the darling of the powers that be. 

Anurag Jain: The Highway Man

An engineer from IIT Kharagpur, Anurag Jain the man tasked to helm India’s ambitious highway program,  joined the Madhya Pradesh cadre of the IAS in 1989. 

Well-versed in the style and politics of a state known to be highly politicised and polarised between BJP and Congress, he is known to be close to both former Chief Ministers - Digvijay Singh and Shivraj Singh Chauhan.  

His close colleagues say that while posted as DM he was popular among locals and easily accessible, a trait he carried with him as he went up the civil service ladder.

A brilliant student, he came to the limelight when as joint secretary in the finance ministry he first helped implement the financial inclusion scheme during the UPA regime and then the broadened and rebranded Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. 

His working style drew the attention of the PMO, and he was posted as joint secretary in the PMO in 2015. His major responsibility in the PMO was, coordinating various Ministries, especially economic ministries.

A year back Jain, 58, was given the job of helming the crucial road transport ministry and highways ministry. A job that has assumed importance given the stress that both the Vajpayee and Modi governments have placed on constructing and relaying highways all over the country. 

What makes Jain tick and win favour with the top brass is his ability to deliver under pressure. His task as the Highways man is unenviable – settle disputes over land and contracts and get things moving.   

Till now, the IIT engineer has delivered on promises. After the highway building program peaked in 2020-21 when some 13,327 km of highways were built, he was asked to ratchet up construction so that a target of building more than 13,000 km in the financial year 2023-24 could be achieved.  

Though the year-end evaluation is yet to be completed, insiders say the targets have been achieved including for the prestigious Bharatmala project. 

Early in his reign at Transport Bhavan, headquarters of the highways ministry, Jain had to deal with a major tunnel collapse. Out-of-the-box thinking and quite round-the-clock work ensured that the workers could be rescued in record time even after international experts predicted it would take a long time to get them out. 

His colleagues say this is what endures him to the powers that be – “quiet, dependable and able to think holistically while working under pressure.”

Jaya Verma Sinha: Crisis Manager

As the first woman Chairperson and CEO of the 166-year-old Railway Board, Jaya Verma Sinha made history when she was appointed to the post in September 2023. Sinha shone in adverse circumstances; when the three-train collision in Balasore, Odisha in the first week of June last year killed nearly 300 people, she was at the centre of the crisis management post-Balasore.

She not only managed to salvage the image of the government but managed to save it from embarrassment by acting quickly on both relief and rescue. She also got the railway system to restart in record time on that vital sector which links Kolkata and mineral rich areas of eastern India with factories and ports in South India.

Sinha, who has earlier worked as Member-Operations at the Railway Board, has about 35 years of experience. She is also believed to have been instrumental in increasing freight haulage by the railways. 

Jaya Sinha spent four years as the railway advisor at the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, during which the Maitree Express between Kolkata and Dhaka was launched. She was also instrumental in the introduction and expansion of more Vande Bharat trains in the country.

Sinha, a 1986 batch officer of the Indian Railway Traffic Service, joined the Indian Railways after graduating from  Allahabad University. She is believed to be one of the favourite bureaucrats of the powers that be in the current government.

S Krishnan: Bigger Role?

S Krishnan, currently the secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, is considered another of Modi’s blue-eyed boys and part of a charmed circle of policymakers whose voice counts.

Krishnan, yet another Stephanian bureaucrat, joined the Tamil Nadu Cadre in 1989. He made a name for himself before joining the Ministry of Electronics, as the Additional Chief Secretary in the state, responsible for Investment promotion into the state, one of India’s leading industrial hubs. In his home state, he has also handled the rich state’s money as its finance secretary.

His colleagues at the Centre say he always has the numbers at his fingertips and he doesn’t speak without numbers.

Krishnan, a mild-mannered, jovial officer, is known to keep all relevant figures and statistics at his fingertips. In the words of his colleagues, he is also someone who knows when to speak and when to keep quiet.

Krishnan is no stranger to Raisina Hill. Between 2004-2007, he was private secretary to the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram. His reward for having handled the hot seat was a plum posting at the International Monetary Fund in Washington.

In Delhi, he helped spearhead the Semiconductor Mission, and his policy decisions for homegrown chips and supporting component ecosystems are considered model ones.

Krishnan also played a key role in the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and is believed to be currently working for the passage of the Digital India Bill, which will overhaul the IT Act 2000. 

People from the industry say that he is polite yet tenacious and follows up on all discussions thoroughly. With at least three more years on his side, he is believed to be slated for an even bigger role in NDA 3.0 if the alliance comes back to power.