NEW DELHI: Dinesh Khara, the low-profile chairman of State Bank of India, is gearing up to meet the demand from companies and individuals impacted by Covid as he and his team seek to assess the impact of the second wave. In an interview, he tells TOI that companies have sufficient headroom in terms of unutilised credit facility to meet their requirement. Excerpts:
From an economic standpoint, how is the second wave different from the first?
Compared to the first wave, when GDP decelerated by over 23% in Q1FY21, we expect numbers to be significantly different this time. The other aspect is that lockdowns have happened at different points in time, which has ensured continued economic activity. The supply chain has got disrupted for industries, but some activities like construction have continued. Also, we have not seen the migrations from cities that were there last year, and living with Covid has become a new normal. We do not see much disruption for large corporates. It is largely