IANS | 01 Apr, 2024
Over the next 10 years, India must strive to become a ‘financially
Aatmanirbhar’ economy and continue to march ahead confidently in the
path of progress and development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here
on Monday.
Speaking at the 90th anniversary celebrations of the
Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Prime Minister said the country’s
economy has risen in the past years from the inherited mess after the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government took charge in 2014, adding that
it is now poised for take-off.
“India is among the youngest
nations in the world… Our policies have opened up new sectors in the
economy, such as green energy, digital technology, defence, which is
getting into the export mode, MSME, space, and tourism. The RBI must
address the aspirations of the youth and develop ‘out-of-the-box’
policies for all these emerging sectors to help the youth,” the Prime
Minister said.
Pointing out that globally there is a challenge for
nations to strike a balance between inflation control and growth, PM
Modi called upon the RBI to study and develop a model for this which can
be a trendsetter for the world, especially the Global South, while
ensuring that the Indian rupee is accessible and acceptable world over.
He
said that in the next 10 years, India will strive to improve its
‘financial independence’ with the country’s economy getting impacted
minimally by global developments as "we are already on the way to
becoming a world growth engine".
PM Modi also recalled the RBI@80
celebrations in 2014 and the challenges and problems like NPAs
confronting the country’s banking system.
"But in the past 10
years, we have reached a point where the Indian banking system is being
seen as strong and sustainable, and the near moribund system of that
time is now in profit and showing record credit," he said.
The
Prime Minister also credited this transformation to the clarity of
policy, intentions and decisions, the comprehensive reforms, working on
the strategy of recognition, resolution and recapitalisation, a capital
infusion of Rs 3.5 lakh crore to help public sector banks, and the
effectiveness of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).
More
than 27,000 applications involving underlying defaults of over Rs 9 lakh
crore were resolved even before admission under the IBC, PM Modi said,
adding that gross NPAs of banks, which stood at 11.25 per cent,
plummeted to below 3 per cent by September 2023, as he lauded the RBI’s
role in this transformation.
The Prime Minister also highlighted
the other major achievements in the past 10 years, including the reach
of the Jan Dhan accounts, the Kisan Credit Card, the inclusion of the
poor in the country’s banking mainstream, and the growth of digital
payments with over 1,200 crore transactions every month, among others.
Stressing
the importance of innovations, the Prime Minister asked the bankers and
regulators to be prepared for the needs of the new and traditional
sectors like space and tourism, green energy comprising solar energy,
green hydrogen and ethanol blending, the indigenously made 5G
technology, rising exports in the defence sector, and the MSMEs becoming
the backbone of India’s manufacturing sector.
To mark the
occasion, the Prime Minister also released a commemorative coin to mark
the RBI’s 90th anniversary in the presence of Finance Minister Nirmala
Sitharaman, Ministers of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad and Pankaj
Chaudhary, Maharashtra Governor Ramesh Bais, Chief Minister Eknath
Shinde, Deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, and RBI Governor
Shaktikanta Das, among others.