Paresh Chandra Bhattacharya

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(born 1 March 1903) was the seventh Governor of the

Reserve Bank of India The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is responsible for ...

from 1 March 1962 to 30 June 1967. Unlike his predecessors he was a member of the

Indian Audits and Accounts Service Indian Audit and Accounts Service is a Central Group 'A' central civil service under the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Government of India. The central civil servants under the Indian Audit and Accounts Service serve in an audit mana ...

(IA&AS). He was appointed an Officer of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(OBE) in the

1946 New Year Honours The 1946 New Year Honours were appointments by many of the Commonwealth Realms of King George VI to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries, and to celebrate the passing of 1945 and the beginnin ...

. He served as Secretary in the

Finance Ministry A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...

and later as

Chairman of State Bank of India The chairperson of the State Bank of India is the chief executive officer of India's largest scheduled commercial bank and the ''ex-officio'' chair of its Central Board of Directors. Since its establishment in 1955 by the government of India, t ...

before his appointment as the Governor. As RBI Governor he strongly opposed the

nationalising Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

of private banks in India,The Congress Split
Accidental India: A History of the Nation's Passage through Crisis and Change By Shankkar Aiyar by writing a letter to the then Deputy Prime Minister Morarji Desai warning about the costs of nationalising the banks saying it was not desirable. During his tenure the size of the currency notes of denomination 5, 10 and 100 were reduced in size for economic reasons. Bhattacharya's tenure saw the establishment of the

Industrial Development Bank of India The IDBI Bank Limited (IDBI Bank or IDBI) is a development finance institution under the ownership of Life Insurance Corporation of India and Government of India. It was established in 1964 as Industrial Development Bank of India, a developmen ...

in 1964, the Agricultural Refinance Corporation in 1963 and the

Unit Trust of India UTI Mutual Fund was carved out of the erstwhile Unit Trust of India (UTI) as a Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) registered mutual fund from 1 February 2003. The Unit Trust of India Act 1963 was repealed, paving way for the bifurcati ...

in 1964. The banknotes signed by P C Bhattacharya have very high resale value in the grey market because of their rarity. A 10 rupee note signed by Bhattacharya fetches 800 to 1000 rupees today. During his tenure as Governor of RBI, the size of the bank notes of Rs 5, 10 and 100 denominations had been reduced to cut cost of production, which make these notes relatively rare in the collectors market.

References

Governors of the Reserve Bank of India Indian bankers Indian civil servants Officers of the Order of the British Empire 1903 births University of Calcutta alumni Year of death missing Place of birth missing Place of death missing {{WestBengal-politician-stub