PSBs brainstorm to make India a $5-trillion economy in 5 years

Eighteen PSBs came together recently in Pune as part of the second round of the ideation exercise to help India become a $5-trillion economy in five years.

The heads of all 18 PSBs and Sujata Iyer, Joint Director, Department of Economics and Statistics, Government of Maharashtra, and RBI representative, MK Moon, were present in the meeting.

AS Rajeev, Managing Director and CEO, Bank of Maharashtra, said the first stage of the bottom-up consultation process to generate ideas and review performance of banks and their alignment with national priorities was conducted at the regional level on August 17 and 18 by all PSBs, involving all branches within their regions’ jurisdiction. This was a first-of-its-kind consultation, where the branches were asked to review their performance, deliberate on the issues before the banking sector, and indicate on future strategies, and the way forward for the economy to achieve the government’s aim of a $5-trillion economy by 2024-25.

He added that the meet also focussed on the ways and means to increase credit to various sectors of the economy, enhance use of technology to bring about innovation, and enable big data analytics.

Making banking citizen-centric, as well as more responsive to the needs and aspirations of senior citizens, farmers, small industrialists, entrepreneurs, exporters, youth, students, and women were discussed at the meeting.

The consultations during the two days generated a number of implementable and innovative suggestions, which will be collated and presented during the National-Level Consultation Meet on how PSBs could improve their performance and on the road map for the future.