new delhi finance secretary rajiv kumar is leading the team of bureaucrats assisting finance minister nirmala sitharaman in taking steps to boost sagging economic growth in an interview to toi he suggested that exports needed to be boosted to help the manufacturing sector apart from substituting nonessential imports and indicated that some of the bank mergers will be completed by early 2020 excerptswhat is the overall sense of the slowdownin the last threefour years there have been several structural changes if you were to look at the earlier structure there was lax discipline and standards across the financial sector be it banks borrowers rating agencies or auditors were weak as part of a plan the government has been trying to plug loopholes to ensure that the economy stands on a clean footing if you join the dots there is a much a cleaner credit system in place and better corporate governance standards there is more transparency in the financial system demand from it companies startups and aggregators is not a problem the slowdown is mainly in manufacturing and real estate which were more dependent on the informal sector one has to attend to these sectors because there is a shortage of equity and credit availability the fm has had several rounds of consultations and whatever fiscal or nonfiscal measures are required are being takenso is the transition is resulting in the pain to the economyin certain sectors which were more dependent on the informal money to an extent yes this transition will result in a far more stronger base on which businesses will be built there is also a need to supplement exportoriented industries such as electronics textiles or food processing where import substitution can take place it will help the overall balance of payments situation besides using up idle capacity for that this is the time to look at exportrelated schemes either through subvention or easier rules you have announced the merger of 10 banks will the new entities be robust to deal with challenges given that some are emerging or have just emerged from very difficult timesfrom the situation threefour years ago their npas have reduced recoveries are high 14 are now profitable compared to just four in the previous quarter the government has been working on a roadmap to not just clean the banking system but also make it robust banks have more powers for improved governance having brought them to a position of strength this is the time for a leap forward unless there is scale they cant invest in technology infrastructure or realise efficiency gains we have been testing it step by step and we tried out with one merger and learnt from it it is a move towards sound wellcapitalised banks which have muscle who can appraise better risk it will be ensured that there is no disruption as far as customers are concerned and also credit expansion is not obstructed the idea is to deliver services at the doorsteps of senior citizens while