My meetings with Dr Reddy

Dr Yaga Venugopal Reddy (www.yvreddy.com)

Another day in 1998

From 1996 to 1998, I was an AGM and Member of Faculty at the Reserve Bank of India’s Zonal Training Centre (ZTC) in Mumbai. The ZTC was then on the fourth floor of the Bank’s Byculla Office opposite the Bombay Central Station. The story of my meetings with Dr Reddy starts on 7 October 1998. On my way home, I saw a tray next to a pillar on the ground floor. It always had letters addressed to the hoi polloi, staff not important enough to receive letters at their desks. Those were still snail mail days. Nevertheless, I always ignored the tray. But that day, my sixth sense indicated a letter for me.

As I rifled through the pile, my fingers fell on a white cover with the RBI logo in navy blue at one end. Turning it over, I found my name and address scrawled at the right end. On the left was printed, also in navy blue, “Reserve Bank of India Central Office Bombay”. Above it was another scribble: Dr YV Reddy, Deputy Governor. Continue reading “My meetings with Dr Reddy”

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Indian Cooperation: Finding Raiffeisens

That wretched woman with the infant in her arms, round whose meagre form the remnant of her own scanty shawl is carefully wrapped, has been attempting to sing some popular ballad, in the hope of wringing a few pence from the compassionate passer-by.

Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz

“Cooperation has failed, but cooperation must succeed,” is an oft-quoted extract from the 1954 report of the All India Rural Credit Survey Committee (AIRCSC). Sir Benegal Rama Rau, the fourth Governor, Reserve Bank of India, appointed the Committee.  No other financial sector was the subject of scrutiny by as many committees as Indian cooperation. The quote is believed to be the contribution of Burra Venkatappaiah, of the Indian Civil Service. Venkatappaiah was then the Reserve Bank of India’s first Executive Director, and a member of the AIRCSC. He later became Deputy Governor, and the fourth Chairman of the State Bank of India. Thereafter he chaired the All India Rural Credit Review Committee which reported in 1969. I have a separate post on Venkatappaiah coming up, but my focus here is on Indian cooperation. Continue reading “Indian Cooperation: Finding Raiffeisens”

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