Ever since he took over from C Rangarajan as the country's chief money man on November 22, Jalan has shattered many a myth. In five months, he held four meetings with chiefs of banks and financial institutions to facilitate infrastructure financing; he met media representatives more often than any other governor, but the intention has been more to hear them then being heard; he did not deliver a single speech to drop hints about his stance on the monetary policy; and he scrapped the convention of meeting seniorbankers on the eve of the policy to discuss money matters. Jalan had finished drafting the policy even before the date of the policy was announced.

The monetary and credit policy for the first half of 1998-99 will be Jalan's policy -- in language as well as in spirit. The role of the credit planning cell and other important departments of the central bank like banking operations and development, industrial credit, export credit, external investments, internal debt management and the rural planning and credit cell, however, still continue to be significant in terms of providing inputs.

The scene was very different in the Rangarajan era when the credit planning cell used to kick off a series of credit budget meetings with banks well ahead of the policy announcement and then followed it up by placing a comprehensive draft before the governor. The policy document could be finalised only after receiving the green signal from the finance ministry.

Till the last moment, none of the departments knew what'sthere in the policy -- how many suggestions were accepted and how many dropped. And hence the suspense, tension and hushed whispers in the corridors of the RBI. Rangarajan and Jalan, a monetary economist and a career bureaucrat, are a study in contrast. As governor, Rangarajan announced ten credit policies.

He was also instrumental in drafting another ten policies as a deputy governor. On assuming office, the first thing Jalan did was to impress upon the finance ministry the importance of having one policy a year and not two -- as the concept of slack season and busy season policies based on the agricultural cycle has been rendered redundant now. Unlike his predecessor, Jalan is not in favour of announcing "measures" in his policy. Instead, his focus is more on structural issues.

Like the US Fed chief Allan Greenspan, Jalan's idea of credit policy is to announce the stance of the central government once a year at a stadium and not debating on short-term measures in the boardroom of the RBI.

Even ifthe April 29 policy contains certain measures, they will be purely incidental. The three prongs of the policy will be a review of the present credit situation, the Reserve Bank of India's stance and the structural adjustments. In a brief meeting with finance minister Yashwant Sinha on April 23, Jalan discussed these issues.

Rangarajan, a textbook economist, seldom went beyond using conventional tools for liquidity and interest rate management. Jalan, in stark contrast, has too many weapons in his arsenal. And he will not hesitate in using any of these for fear of being branded "regressive. " The market does not rule out the possibility of a few surprises in the "governor's policy".