India’s economy that stayed drown for the major part of the last eight months owing to the pandemic has shown resilience and will bounce back from the next fiscal, State Bank of India chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara said on Saturday.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar in a virtual briefing earlier this week mentioned that the collections of the goods and services tax (GST) crossed Rs1 trillion mark for the first time this fiscal year, exponential growth in digital payments via unified payments interface (UPI), rise in power demand, increasing foreign direct investment and railway freight loading, are some of the indicators, signalling a recovery in economic growth, mint reported.

Khara, 59 took over the chairmanship of the State Bank of India only in October this year and believes that there will be a “paradigm shift” which will lead to a more matured economy” with economic players learning to contain costs, PTI reported. 

During a virtual annual general meeting of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he said,”The economy is expected to bounce back from the next fiscal starting from April 2021. The next normal will see a paradigm shift and some of them will be permanent.” He added that the economy had shown resilience to come out from the downturn” and some positive traction was witnessed towards the end of the first quarter of the current fiscal.

Khara urged that investment demand from corporate will take some time to pick up.

“Average capacity utilisation among the corporations is around 69%. Investment demand from corporate will take some time to pick up. The cash-rich PSUs will initially embark upon capital expenditure plan which will generate investment demand,” he said.

The corporate sector will become “very careful about borrowings” and use their internal resources initially.

He said the core sectors of the economy, such as steel and cement, have been doing well throughout the period starting from April 2020, and they are in a position to tap the export markets.

However, the travel, tourism and hospitality are the worst-hit sectors in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.