Former RBI governor Shaktikanta Das, now principal secretary-2 to the Prime Minister, said on Tuesday that India is in striking distance of 8% growth and is expected to remain the fastest-expanding major economy in the world.

He made the remarks at a media event in Mumbai, where he pinned the country’s momentum on three forces he described as the triple engines of growth.

Three engines, one target

Das pointed to macroeconomic stability, continuing structural reforms and strategic policy initiatives aimed at building domestic capacity. The last point mattered most to him. India remains largely import dependent in several areas, and the reforms are designed to change that.

“India is in striking distance of 8% growth, with the economy being powered by the triple engines of macroeconomic stability; continuing structural reforms; and strategic policy initiatives to develop domestic capacity where we are largely import dependent,” Das said.

He was direct about the timeline. The future, he said, is being built right now.

“The seeds of our future and long-term growth are being sown today.”

Why the banking and financial sector sits at the centre

Das gave the BFSI sector a central role in the country’s climb from a lower-middle-income economy to a high-income one. The sector, he said, does this through its intermediation in allocating financial resources.

His list of responsibilities for the sector was long. It has to support the next generation of Digital Public Infrastructure, act as the frontline of green and transition finance, and become the catalyst for democratising financial inclusion.

Each of those roles carries a specific task. Banks and financiers will have to help fund the creation of digital carbon markets and issue sovereign green bonds. They will also need to offer competitive financing products for green hydrogen and renewable energy infrastructure.

Small businesses and farms get the spotlight

Das called micro, small and medium enterprises and agriculture the engines of India’s economy. In his view, these sectors need to be empowered, not left to wait for credit.

His solution leans on data. He said lenders should rely on alternative digital footprints such as GST records and account aggregation. That would allow instant, algorithmic credit underwriting.

He singled out the RBI’s Unified Lending Interface as a central piece of that shift. Its full-scale rollout, he said, would be a game changer in this context.

Pulling savings into productive assets

Das also wants the sector to change where Indian households put their money. He said the financial sector should focus on deepening the financialisation of savings.

The goal is to move domestic wealth out of physical assets like gold and real estate and into productive financial assets. He pointed to micro-investment and mutual fund products as the tools for that job.

Digital rails and cross-border payments

The next phase of Digital Public Infrastructure, in Das’s telling, goes well beyond domestic apps. He listed the globalisation of UPI as one priority.

He also called for expanding real-time cross-border payment linkages. Those links, he said, would reduce remittance costs and cut friction in international trade settlements. He added that greater deployment of the central bank digital currency, the CBDC, would support wider adoption.

Taken together, the agenda reads as a bid to make India’s financial plumbing a global export, not just a domestic convenience.

The bigger test ahead

Das framed the whole push against a backdrop of unsettled global conditions. He said India’s march towards Viksit Bharat would depend on a sound, efficient and profitable BFSI sector.

That is a high bar, and Das did not pretend otherwise. But his message to the room was clear. India has the stability, the reform agenda and the financial infrastructure to keep closing the gap to 8% growth, and the sector that moves the money has to lead the charge.