Manmohan Singh once wrote a cheque for his gains from devaluation of the rupee

He held an overseas bank account that had his earnings from working abroad. The value of his savings, in rupee terms, went up following the July 1991 decision of the government to devalue the Indian currency.

Instead of pocketing the gains, Dr Manmohan Singh, who was the finance minister in the P.V. Narasimha Rao government at that time, just wrote a cheque for the incremental gains and had it deposited in the Prime Minister National Relief Fund.

Recounting the incident, Ramu Damodaran — who was then private secretary to Narasimha Rao — said that shortly after the devaluation decision, Manmohan Singh visited the PM's office.

He walked straight into the PM's room on disembarking from his car when he got there, but on the way out, he detoured to come to Damodaran's room.

"Maybe a couple of days after the devaluation. He came for a meeting (with PM), and on the way out, he handed over a small envelope to me and asked me to deposit it in the PM's National Relief Fund," Damodaran told PTI from New York, where he is currently posted as permanent observer to the United Nations for the University for Peace.

The envelope contained a cheque for "a huge amount".

Singh did that of his own volition.

Damodaran went on to explain that Singh had had an overseas bank account when he worked abroad.

The former prime minister, who died on Thursday, 26 December, at the age of 92, had served as secretary general of the South Commission, an independent economic policy think tank headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, between 1987 and 1990.

The government of the day, in which Singh was the finance minister, devalued the rupee by 9 per cent on 1 July 1991 and by an additional 11 per cent on 3 July 1991. This was to avert a financial crisis — India had very limited foreign exchange reserves with which to carry out international trade, such as buying oil and fertilisers, and meanwhile, exports had reduced.

The devaluation meant that every US dollar or any other foreign currency and overseas assets would, when converted into Indian rupees, obtain more value.

Damodaran, an IFS officer who served in the PMO from 1991 to 1994, said Singh thought it was prudent to deposit his personal gains.

"He (Singh) did not publicise it, just quietly deposited what he thought was the difference in rupee value of his assets abroad consequent upon devaluation," he said. "I am sure he would have told Prime Minister Rao later, but he just did not make a big deal about it ever."

Singh, according to Damodaran, carried "quite an authority about his 'silent' persona".

The Oxford-educated economist was not a politician by profession, but he commanded respect from veterans of the trade.

"None showed any resentment towards him. He would not get into any kind of arguments, just present facts, and they were accepted (by the senior politicians in the government)," he added.

Singh opened up the economy as finance minister in the Rao government and then went on to serve as prime minister of India for two consecutive terms — from 2004 to 2014.

The soft-spoken Singh had in his youth studied at Cambridge University before heading to Oxford, where he earned a doctorate with a thesis on the role of exports and free trade in India's economy.

He would later serve as RBI governor (1982–85) and an economic advisor to the government, before being made the finance minister in 1991.