Mumbai: Finance Secretary Duvvuri Subbarao will take over as the new governor of the Reserve Bank of India on 5 September when the current governor Y V Reddy's term expires.

Subbaro, 59, will hold office of the RBI governor for the next three years.

Reddy who became the RBI governor in July 2003, succeeding Bimal Jalan, expressed unwillingness for an extension of his term, forcing the government to look for a replacement.

''D Subbarao, who is currently the finance secretary, will take over on 5 September and his tenure will be for the next three years,'' finance minister P Chidambaram announced at a press conference in the evening.

While several names have been doing the rounds, Chidambaram had earlier turned down enquiries regarding the new RBI governor saying that the right information would be revealed at the right time.

An alumnus of IIT Kanpur and a 1972 batch officer of the Indian Administrative Service belonging to the Andhra cadre, Subbarao was secretary to Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council.

An alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he was a Humphrey Fellow, Subbarao also holds a doctorate from Andhra University.

Subbarao joined the civil services after earning Masters in Economics from the Ohio State university.

The present deputy governor of Reserve Bank, Rakesh Mohan, was also a strong contender for the post.

The new central bank governor takes over at a time of a slow-down in the country's economic growth and a continuing fight against inflation that seems to have started showing results.

While the country's economic growth has declined from 9.2 per cent in the first quarter last year to around 7.9 per cent in the comparable current quarter, the inflation rate has also seen a decline from the 16-year highs.