Shaktikanta Das (born 26 February 1957) is a retired Indian civil servant who was the 25th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from December 2018 to December 2024. A history graduate and career administrator, he steered the central bank through the COVID-19 pandemic and a period of high global inflation. In February 2025 he was appointed Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Shaktikanta Das |
| Born | 26 February 1957, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India |
| Age | 69 |
| Service | Indian Administrative Service, Tamil Nadu cadre (1980 batch) |
| Offices | Revenue Secretary; Economic Affairs Secretary (2015–2017); RBI Governor (2018–2024); Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister (2025–present) |
| Education | St. Stephen’s College, Delhi (B.A., M.A. History) |
Early Life
Das was born in Bhubaneswar and studied at the Demonstration Multipurpose School there. He took bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history at St. Stephen’s College and joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1980.
Career
He held posts in the Tamil Nadu government, including in industries and revenue, and then spent many years in the Union Finance Ministry, working on a number of Budgets. He was Revenue Secretary in 2014–15, when the groundwork for the Goods and Services Tax was laid, and Economic Affairs Secretary from 2015 to 2017. In that role he was the government’s public face during the demonetisation of November 2016, giving daily briefings on the supply of new banknotes. After retiring he was a member of the Fifteenth Finance Commission and India’s representative, or “sherpa”, at the G20.
He was appointed on 11 December 2018, a day after Urjit Patel resigned amid differences between the bank and the government. He restored a working relationship with the Finance Ministry. During the pandemic the bank cut interest rates to record lows, allowed borrowers to pause loan repayments and pumped money into the financial system. When inflation rose in 2022 it raised rates by 2.5 percentage points. He managed the rescue of Yes Bank in 2020, the launch of a pilot digital rupee and the withdrawal of ₹2,000 notes in 2023. The magazine Global Finance rated him among the world’s top central bankers in 2023 and 2024. Raghuram Rajan was one of his predecessors.
On 22 February 2025 he was named Principal Secretary-2 to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Shaktikanta Das born?
Shaktikanta Das was born on 26 February 1957 in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India and is 69 years old.
Featured image: Shaktikanta Das, then Economic Affairs Secretary, speaks at the launch of the OECD Economic Survey of India, New Delhi, 28 February 2017. Photo by Press Information Bureau, Government of India, licensed under CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
