You can’t be too fixated on the Sensex or you’ll miss what is really happening, was the warning from Setty. At the Citi India Conference 2026, he made the case for a hard turn toward India’s growth story. The kind of returns you see in the next 20 years won’t be about short-term market wiggles, but the underlying drivers.
Why Setty wants you to look past the Sensex
In a world that has been turned on its head by geopolitics, supply chains and tech, Setty sees India as one of the few places for stability and opportunity. His point was made in no uncertain terms: ‘Don’t look at Sensex. Look at India as a long-term story.’
He puts India in the category of the 21st century’s defining growth stories. There are new hurdles every year, of course, but also new momentum.
The numbers behind Vision India 2047
Setty makes the connection to Vision India 2047, the plan to get us to a developed economy, or Viksit Bharat, with per capita income of $10,000 or more. You get there through manufacturing, infrastructure, clean energy and broad-based inclusion, he says.
Then he put a number on it. To keep this leg of the journey going, India is looking at almost Rs 200 trillion in new investment by 2030. By FY35, we could be talking another Rs 400-450 trillion spread across everything from the energy transition to urban development and MSMEs.
A harder push on manufacturing is at the heart of it. We want to move the sector’s slice of GDP from 17 per cent to 25 per cent or so, to put down roots for jobs and exports.
How banking is having to change
For all this to come to fruition, Setty says banks have to put on a new hat. The model of the future has to be one where you can reach into any part of the economy and society for a service, while being smart about how you put capital to work.
The balance sheets are in good shape for it. Scheduled commercial banks have taken their infrastructure lending from Rs 9.6 trillion in 2016 to just under Rs 14 trillion now. In FY26, agricultural credit was over Rs 26 trillion, and if you add up MSME credit, you’re at about Rs 67 trillion.
But it is more than just handing out loans. He would have you see banks as partners in building the country – enablers of business and savers of capital, not just a source of credit.
Digital and clean energy: the multipliers
There are two things already making a big difference: digital and renewables. The UPI is churning out 200 billion transactions a year. SBI is responsible for 30 per cent of that, or 250 million a day.
When it comes to the climate, he figures we are looking at some $22 trillion in total investments to hit net-zero by 2070. And we are ahead of the game on power; renewables are now over 50 per cent of our capacity.
So here is the way Setty puts it for the investor:
– Don’t let near-term volatility rattle you
– See where the capital is forming in the sectors that matter
– Keep an eye on how the banking system is moving
– Observe the uptake in digital and clean energy
What to watch next
There are three or four demographic and spatial changes you need to be aware of. With 60 per cent of us in the countryside, rural well-being is non-negotiable. And by 2050, urban India will be home to 800 million people, which means we have to put in the work on housing, transit and the like.
Our working-age population is on track to top 1.1 billion by 2050. That is a lot of people to put to work and put to use. It is at the intersection of that and the scale-up of manufacturing and MSMEs that you will find the action.
We have shown we can do inclusion, Setty says. Now the job is to make it a prosperity engine. That is what you should be focused on, not the ebb and flow of the Sensex.
If you want to cut through the noise, his message is unambiguous: follow Vision India 2047. Over the decades to come, the story of this country will be told by how much we invest and how well our institutions handle it.
