UK Sinha assumes office as 8th Sebi chairman

Mumbai, Feb 18 (PTI) Upendra Kumar Sinha assumed theoffice as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Boardtoday from the outgoing chairman Chandrashekar Baskar Bhave,who had considerably raised the bar of the authority of theinstitution during his three-year tenure.

As the eighth chairman of the market''s watchdog, UK, ashe is known among his friends, has a tough task cut out forhim, since his predecessor had placed the institution highlyabove suspicion and had also shown the real powers of the Sebito one and all-especially the mighty.

During his tenure, Bhave had ensured that everystakeholder in the marketplace, especially the retailinvestors, is rightly heard and not just the mighty brokersand the mightier corporates.

That Bhave was not amenable to be taken lightly was clearfrom the way he went about taking on the mighty Ambanis,Sahara group and Financial Technologies, to name a few. Andarguably this would remain Bhave''s most singular contributionas the head of the market regulator.

Before being selected to head the Sebi, Sinha was thechairman and managing director of UTI Mutual Fund, and priorto this, a joint secretary in North Bloc (June 2002-October20052).

Since Bhave has been an ardent advocate of maintainingregulatory autonomy, and has been successful in maintainingits turf during his tenure, this would be another key test forSinha. Hopefully, the persuasive skills of this 1976 batch IASofficer from the Bihar cadre will come to his aid as whiledealing with the government at a time when the government isseriously planning to clip the financial autonomy of variousregulators by forcing them to keep the funds with theConsolidated Fund of India. (More) PTI BEN VKV