New Delhi, Aug 22(Reuters & Online Bureau): US-based economist Arvind Subramanian is poised to be named as chief economic adviser to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, two sources at the finance ministry said on Friday.

If confirmed, the appointment would bring in a second economist of international renown to a key policy post after former International Monetary Fund chief economist Raghuram Rajan was brought in as governor of the central bank last year. Rajan was appointed by the previous government.

Subramanian, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, is a graduate of St Stephens College, Delhi, and an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, According to the IIE site, he did his M.Phil and D.Phil from Oxford University, UK.

Union finance minister Arun Jaitley is believed to have recommended the appointment of Subramanian. Cabinet-level approval is expected to follow.

”He is likely to be appointed soon,” one of the sources said.

Subramanian, like Rajan, has a background in the IMF, where he was assistant director in the research department.

Modi stormed to a general election victory in May with a pledge to lift the economy out of its worst slowdown in a quarter of a century and put to work the one million young people who enter the workforce each month.

He has abolished a Soviet-style Planning Commission, but made an otherwise slow start on economic reforms, disappointing some supporters who had hoped that he would take decisive action to promote a recovery.