‘Banking sector needs to grow at 3 times of GDP’

“What banks have to do now is to fund both investment and consumption. They have to find funds for investing in infrastructure,meeting the demands of working capital from corporates and SMEs as well as small individuals. So there’s a huge role for banks to play,” she said.

The Indian economy seems to have fully shrugged off the impact of the global economic crisis with its 8.9 per cent growth in the second quarter of the fiscal. Confident of a near 9 per cent growth in 2010-11,both the government and the industry is now looking at ways to reach double digit growth in the next few years.

The economic crisis has created an unprecedented shift in the international economic situation,said Janmejaya Sinha,chairman (Asia Pacific),Boston Consulting Group. “While the crisis hit the US and Europe,it has created huge investor interest in Asia Pacific and India. India should use this to its advantage,” he said at the discussion.

But,arguing that the high growth rate is partly due to a set of very propitious set of circumstances,Shekhar Gupta,Editor-in-Chief of The Indian Express said that one of the key drivers of growth has also been the country’s stable polity. “Unless the politics of the country was right,none of these factors would have worked,” he said.

Meanwhile,industry leaders from across sectors said the country can reap the enormous benefits from its demographic dividend by educating and training its large workforce. “By 2020,nearly 25 per cent of the world’s working population will be in India,” Kochhar pointed out.

“With over 600 million people under the age of 29 years,the biggest opportunity for India is to transform itself into a knowledge economy,” said Shantanu Prakash,CEO Educomp Solutions. Pointing out that over 140 million children in the country are unable to go to schools at present,he said the private sector needs to step up efforts to find innovative education solutions.