Decades ago Public Sector Banks were created in India to fulfill the social banking needs of our people. But, liberalization brought in certain challenges which inspired leadership at every level.

   And looking forward, in today’s complex financial scenario and considering the high rate of Non Performing Assets (NPAs) faced by many of our PSBs, they need to constantly evolve to stand the test of India. The entire public sector space in India was created with a social objective and in areas where private enterprise either did not show interest or diverted from the essential purpose of it. The public sector banks were created through two stages of nationalization. The primary goal was to fulfill the social banking needs. Gradually, in an era of liberalized economy and listing of banks on stock exchanges the performance metrics changed.

   During 1980s, predominant metrics were growth in number of branches and business....