MUMBAI: Sixty may be the age of retirement when in public service, but Arundhati Bhattacharya is no ordinary banker to stick to the script. On Friday, as she stepped down as the first woman Chairperson of SBI, she confirmed that she wasn’t calling it a day. “Obviously I am not going to just hang up my boots,” she told reporters on her last day in office.
As SBI’s 24th chairman, Bhattacharya steered SBI during the most challenging times involving fighting the bad loans menace and overseeing the historic merger. “I’m past 60 I forget. That doesn’t matter, there’s so much stuff to do if you have the energy and willingness. Definitely, I’ll be around and active. May not be directly in banking, but yes, I’ll be definitely doing some things,” she said.
Ranked the world’s 25th most powerful woman by Forbes in 2016, Bhattacharya said reviving lending was one of her major tasks left unfinished. “Even today credit growth is not where we wanted it to be. So that’s an unfinished agenda. And I think the incoming chairman’s already stated it will be his agenda to take that forward,” she explained referring to Rajnish Kumar, who will take charge as SBI’s 25th Chairman on Saturday.
Bhattacharya also hoped better days ahead for the bank following the NPA resolution and signs of improving credit growth, which was stuck at 5 per cent during FY17 – the slowest pace in over six decades.
“My promises were that you will see better numbers going forward and we will stick to those promises,” she said adding, “I really hope going forward you will see the results of very hard work we had done in the last few years that you’ll appreciate a number of changes we have brought within which are not reflected but will definitely come in near future.”