New Delhi : Government appoints Rajnish Kumar as the Chairman of IndiaÂs largest state run lender State Bank of India for a period of three years. Arundhati BhattacharyaÂs term as SBI chairman ends this week. Kumar currently holds the post of Managing Director at SBI.

At present, Rajnish Kumar is one of the MD of SBI. The Banks Board Bureau (BBB) had interviewed four managing directors for the post at the end of June and had recommended a name to the government.

The new head of the bank will have to lead it through the ongoing resolution of bad loans, while ensuring that it supports growth by stepping up lending. Bad loans are seen as a systemic risk while credit growth is a key element of India’s economic revival strategy. 

Appointed in 2013 as the bank’s first woman chairman, Bhattacharya got a one-year extension in October 2016 to maintain continuity as SBI was preparing to absorb five associate banks and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank in April. That was seen as kicking off a much-anticipated wave of consolidation in the public sector banking space.