aditya puri md of hdfc bank the countrys second largest private bank by his own admission is a big picture man at a time when most honchos outside of the defensive sectors continue to be moderately pessimistic about the economy he feels the business cycle is changing and projects an economic growth of around 75 within the next 18 months the quintessential banker spoke to toiover a nimboopain on a range of issues including his core business nonperforming assets and succession excerptsdo you get a sense of optimism with the reforms ushered in at the fag end of the upa regime as well as the faster clearances for infra projects will it fire growth nobody is expecting there will be some kind of miracle or magic our own estimate is that this year gdp growth rate will be between 54 and 55 maybe next year we will see a 6 and maybe 18 months later we will see 775 as for 910 unless the world really recovers we shouldnt be even discussing that in the medium to longterm we are seen as an outlier among emerging markets and the prospect is bright in the short term as long as we continue to turn around and improve step by step we should be all right to expect investment and large projects to come in at the throes of an election is naive but have you seen any quantifiable benefits of these policy measures we have seen some our momentum is reasonably better than last year and we are seeing changes but stepbystep you could see dramatic changes in the stock markets but changes in actual business will take time i would only say that the worst is over and we are seeing the beginning of green shoots there is also a comparative turnaround in commercial vehicles but this is a gradual process we have spoken to several ceos lately but most still seem reluctant to invest those days are gone where you will go in and start a project and all approvals will come subsequently you will have to move to a more professional approach the guys who are sitting with all their investments in a fertilizer plant a power plant or an aluminium plant and are paying interest because the lastmile clearance has not come obviously are going to be a little troubled but sentiment changes very quickly paisa phenko tamasha dekho throw in money and see the fun if we get the policies right and people feel comfortable with thateverything will change several companies are in distress because their projects have not taken off non performing assets npas in banks have also risen because of that have you lent to such companies no we havent our total restructured portfolio is 02 of which 01 is npa why your npas are so low we have a very clear target market we have a good credit process our credit people do not report to the business guys so there