Reserve Bank governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday underlined the need for a big push to infrastructure investment, education and digital economy to achieve sustainable growth and generate jobs in smaller cities.

“As we recover (from the pandemic), we must deal with the legacies of the crisis and create conditions for strong, inclusive and sustainable growth. Limiting the damage that the crisis inflicted was just the first step; our endeavour should be to ensure durable and sustainable growth in the post-pandemic future,” Das said.

The governor made these comments while speaking at the 48th AIMA National Management Convention through video conferencing.

Sustainable growth, Das said, should entail building on macro fundamentals via medium-term investments, sound financial systems and structural reforms.

“Towards this objective, a big push to investment in healthcare, education, innovation, physical and digital infrastructure will be required. We should also continue with further reforms in labour and product markets to encourage competition and dynamism, and to benefit from the pandemic induced opportunities,” he said.

In addition, the warehouse and supply-chain infrastructure will be critical to bolster value addition and productivity in the agriculture and horticulture sector, Das said, adding this will create employment opportunities in semi-urban and rural areas and promote inclusive growth.

The production-linked incentive scheme announced recently by the government for certain sectors was an important initiative to boost manufacturing, he said.