The economy will revive this fiscal, and will grow by one percentage point more than last fiscal, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said here on Saturday.
“In the next year, I expect it to grow by another one per cent (percentage point) more,” Mr. Chidambaram said while inaugurating the new building of Canara Bank here.
The growth estimate of the Central Statistical Office for 2012-13 at 5 per cent was lower than the Reserve Bank of India’s earlier expectation of 5.5 per cent. The RBI had projected a growth rate of 5.7 per cent for 2013-14.
The Finance Minister told banks to gear up for a growing economy by readying human resources and technology. “We never built the capacity to manage large scale and size. We have to develop these capacities for future growth,” Mr. Chidambaram added.
He said all financial institutions, including regulators, were lacking capacity to handle rising volumes. An exponential growth in the economy needed huge resources, he stressed. “In the senior level whether employees are able to take up multi-task?” he asked, adding that multi-tasking would benefit institutions and the economy. “Unlearn past habits, and learn new ways,” he added.
Mr. Chidambaram said non-performing assets (NPAs) were not unusual. As economy slowed down, this phenomenon happened. Once the economy grew, there would be a reverse to it. The Finance Minister asked bankers to identify wilful defaulters and others.
Mr. Chidambaram said that the next phase of Direct Benefit Transfer would be initiated from July 1. “This is a huge responsibility of banks to identify the beneficiary and deliver it to the beneficiary’s account.”
