Ex-governor of the Reserve Bank of India Urjit Patel has quit as the non-executive and independent director of Britannia Industries Ltd. His resignation came ahead of his joining at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Patel, who served as the 24th RBI governor from September 2016-December 2018, was appointed as the vice-president for investment operations in South Asia at Beijing-based bank, AIIB, recently. He will be assuming office on February 1, 2022.

In a letter uploaded on the exchanges late on Friday, Patel said, “It has been a pleasure to have been a part of the Board of the Company. Due to my new full-time work assignment staring next month, the attendant time constraint has complied me to tender my resignation as an independent Director of Britannia Industries Ltd. from January 31, 2022.”

He further added that there was no other reason for quitting from his post at Britannia.

In April 2021, Patel was made the Additional Director in the category of Non-Executive and Independent Director of Britannia Industries. His tenure was to be of 5 years starting March 31, 2021.

Announcing his appointment, Britannia had said that Patel is not debarred from holding the office of director by virtue of any SEBI order or any other authority.

Joining the AIIB from February, Patel will succeed DJ Pandian, a former Gujarat chief secretary who has been AIIB’s vice-president and chief investment officer since 2016. AIIB was setup in 2016 with India being its second largest shareholder after China.

The present head of AIIB is China’s Jin Liqun, and the bank has five vice-presidents. Since its setup 6 years ago, India has been the biggest borrower of AIIB, followed by Indonesia, Turkey, Bangladesh and China.

In a media interaction, Pandian had informed that India is AIIB’s top investment market with 28 projects valued at $6.71 billion.