He succeeded Rajiv Mehrishi (Retd IAS: 1978: RJ) who served in the same position (NSE IX) at internationally acclaimed GIFT City, Ahmedabad, a futuristic vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to transform India into a global financial hub. 

Gupta retired from IAS in 2018 as Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM). He was closely involved in shaping three Union Budgets and played a crucial role in managing key government initiatives including disinvestment and asset monetisation. He has also been the Chairman of the National Task Force for Promotion of Digital and Cashless Economy from March 2016 up to his retirement.

For global equities & investment products and to raise foreign investment, Indian investors are required to be listed in foreign exchange (Singapore, London, NY) while NSE IX offers similar platform in India itself.

Further, Indian corporate entities raise funds in the foreign exchange through ECB’s using global markets and list their entities in those markets where such framework is provided in India itself. Similarly Indian and foreign equity products & derivatives can be listed here and can be traded in India as GIFT Nifty (previously SGX Nifty). 

NSE IX is the most prestigious component to provide a virtual international financial hub in line with London and Singapore Stock Exchange and like New York Financial Centre.   

The bigger challenge is that in spite of a well-crafted framework with the best intensions, NSE IX was not emerging as fast as it was conceived seven years back. It is assumed that with N K Gupta at the helm, NSE IX would gather further momentum and consolidate the seven years long though initial process of institutionalisation. 

The focus should be that all India-centric financial products are listed and are transacted at NSE IX by providing efficient and less complex transactional framework as compared to other global & Asian exchanges especially Singapore. Now, the transactional ease should be better than Singapore thus creating a pull factor for investors for NSE IX.

For faster growth of this global financial exchange constructive, coordination is required among the unified regulator of the GIFT City (RBI, SEBI & Dept of Revenue) for ironing out obstacles and easing out of transactions for global financial players to prefer GIFT City over other international exchanges. This should be better than Singapore thus creating a pull factor for investors for NSE IX.

GIFT City has a Unified Financial Regulator known as IFSCA which is conceptually a single window combining SEBI & RBI and functions for all financial activities. 

The unified regulator is not strengthened enough and it is relying more on traditional regulators. The present regulatory framework is still traditional and not aligning with such a progressive concept. 

During his stint as Secretary DIPAWM, his role was to bring all departments in line for smooth financial transactions. Now, his co-ordinational experience is on test whether he would be able to synergise with various regulators in improving the transactional ecosystem and ensuring the EOD at NSE IX.

As he was responsible for efficient management of government investments in all Central PSUs & Private Companies, he had extensive interaction with domestic and foreign investors for their access to Indian capital market regulator for rationalising the policies for listing of companies and divestment of equity through various market instruments. He had handled mergers and consolidation, creation of equity and debt ETFs and understood functioning of stock markets etc.