New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government on Tuesday appointed former finance ministry official Shaktikanta Das as governor of the Reserve Bank of India, a day after former central bank boss Urjit Patel resigned abruptly.

Das, a former finance secretary and current member of the 15th finance commission, shot into the public spotlight in late 2016 when he became the bureaucratic face of demonetisation in the weeks following the note-ban decision.

He is a 1980 batch IAS officer from the Tamil Nadu cadre and currently also represents India at the G-20 in a role of a sherpa.

Modi brought in Das initially to head up the revenue department in the finance ministry before moving him to economic affairs, where he helped lead the charge on demonetisation’s implementation in late 2016.

According to a government statement released on Tuesday evening, he will be given a three-year-tenure. Das was the economic affairs secretary till May 2017. In the weeks after demonetisation, he became a familiar face during government press conferences where he pushed the Centre’s line that banning Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes would crack down on the black economy, reduce counterfeit money and spur digital payments. In February 2017, he gave a speech that predicted that the positive effects of demonetisation would be felt from April 2017. He also down-played the negative consequences of demoentisation, saying that “from the next quarter, long-term and medium benefits and outcomes are going to be very positive”.