Jan Dhan Yojana "great opportunity" for "stressed" banking sector: Uday Kotak

Hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visionary 'Jan Dhan Yojana', Uday Kotak, Executive Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited, said today that the financial inclusion scheme offered great opportunity for a "stressed" Indian banking sector.

"The banking industry is presently in the midst of significant stress. The Indian government's Jan Dhan Yojana has a great vision, but execution is important. Financial inclusion cannot happen without the support of the society and other players. Banks alone cannot make the society economically inclusive. But the Jan Dhan Yojana offers tremendous opportunity for the Indian banking sector," Kotak asserted while addressing the Ananta Aspen Centre's flagship "CEO Series" forum.

Reflecting on India's power infrastructure woes, Kotak emphasized the need for a rethink on subsidies and the processes involved.

"We need to have end-to-end thinking on infrastructure and power. The question on the table is do we want to give subsidies to the consumer or make him pay? If you want to subsidise, give it directly from the government budget, but let the markets work. The minute we start working on changing the components of the vertical-such as coal-things get mixed up and vitiate the markets," said Kotak.

The "EY World Entrepreneur of The Year 2014" also went on to laud the government's foreign policy initiatives.

"I feel good about the Modi government. There is hope and aspiration, and he is playing it well. Modi brings a tremendous vision, and he has no baggage or conflict of interest. On foreign policy, especially, you have to hand it to the Prime Minister. He has already covered the immediate neighbourhood and Japan, and now the President of China is coming to India. Now, the need for the government is to get the strategic framework in place between vision and project management." he added.