State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman CS Setty has called for a level playing field across financial savings instruments, stating that traditional incentives for bank deposits and equity instruments may no longer be justified in an evolving market environment. Speaking at the launch of “Chakra,” SBI’s new centre of excellence for financing sunrise sectors, Setty emphasized that financial products should now compete on equal footing, aligning with global practices where bank deposits rarely receive preferential treatment.

Setty highlighted the enormous potential in India’s high-growth sunrise sectors, estimating opportunities worth Rs 100 trillion over the next five years, with an expected debt capital requirement of Rs 20-22 trillion. Chakra will focus on eight transformative sectors, including renewable energy, advanced battery storage, data centers, semiconductors, electric mobility, green ammonia, green organization technologies, and smart infrastructure. These sectors, he said, are critical to India’s next wave of manufacturing and infrastructure growth and will contribute to raising manufacturing’s GDP share.

Chakra aims to bridge the financing gap in emerging sectors, which are often underserved due to perceived risks and lack of understanding. The initiative is positioned as an industry-wide effort rather than an SBI-only project, with over 20 domestic and international financial institutions already participating. By improving project appraisal, risk assessment, and financing structures, Chakra seeks to enable sustainable investments in sectors with high transformative potential.

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Unlike a conventional think tank, Chakra’s mandate extends to actual financing, according to Setty. Partner institutions’ project finance teams will collaborate with SBI to create bankable structures and share expertise, including experience from global banks such as those in Japan, which have long-tenor capital solutions. The centre also plans to work with private equity, corporate cash reserves, and multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank, to ensure long-term capital availability for sectors like semiconductors and green hydrogen.

Setty underscored that the success of sunrise sector financing depends on combining innovative financial structures with policy support and alternative capital sources. “Long-term capital cannot come only from banks; private equity, NBFCs, and large corporates will need to play an active role,” he said. Chakra, he concluded, is designed to create a credible, practical, and industry-wide approach to financing India’s next-generation growth sectors.

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