Shaktikanta Das, PM Modi's Man Friday

Twenty one days after Narendra Damodardas Modi assumed charge as India's 15th Prime Minister on May 26, 2014, his government announced the first major bureaucratic reshuffle -- the appointment of the then fertiliser secretary Shaktikanta Das as the new revenue secretary.

The first task before the new government was to present its first full budget, and Das, a 1980 batch IAS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre who had been in the finance ministry, as joint secretary in charge of budget making for about five years before he was promoted as secretary, ministry of chemicals and fertilisers six months back, was found to be an ideal pick.

Das did not disappoint. In another 25 days, the budget preparation happened and the government managed to find a way to retain its policy priorities to bring tax certainty, and also advance its plans to give final push to the long pending and much debated Goods and Services Tax (GST).

In about a year, Das was made the economic affairs secretary in the finance ministry, where his role involved direct interactions with the public sector banks and the central bank -- the Reserve Bank of India. In 2017, when he retired from the post of Finance Secretary, he had overseen the preparatory works that led to the fine tuning of GST law and had defended the government in the strongest possible manner after its biggest economic disruption -- the demonetisation.

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Das's appointment as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor for three years has come at a time when the government badly needs a battle hardened, trustworthy person at its helm.

For BJP that has suffered a setback in the just concluded elections to key state assemblies, and is facing a general election in less than a year, a friendly RBI can be key to its purse strings. Das could be the last strategic appointment of the government too, in its final leg of the current term.

The challenge before Das, who in the interim was made part of the finance commission and also sherpa of G-20, the international grouping of key countries, will be to balance the autonomy of RBI and the revenue and liquidity needs of the government and Indian economy.

As an insider, he understands the task before him more than anyone else.