institutions. thirdly, and most importantly, there is widespread agreement that the economies concerned will bounce back but the issue is, how soon and at what cost, even if they are transitional. also, the bounce back will necessarily be different for differently affected countries. areas of concern it is not, therefore, surprising that there are new concerns expressed, or what may be called emerging concerns. these relate not only to the state of the economy or policies of each of the emerging markets but also the broader role of government, aspects relating to market failures in both capital exporting and importing countries, sovereignisation of private debt, financial sector liberalisation especially regulation of banks, volatility of capital flows, the pace of capital account liberalisation, regulatory systems in major financial markets, exchange rate management, international bankruptcy procedure, the role of multilateral agencies, and of course international lender of last resort, etc. emerging concerns and the indian economy broadly speaking, there are five major areas of concern today, whenever one analyses an emerging economy. these relate to macro - economy, external sector management, regulation of the financial sector, the state of the corporate sector and the broader issue of transparency in the system. more important, the specific aspects of concern in each are different now compared to say a year ago. without entering into a debate on the appropriateness of such concerns or the differences about what should be a concern or what magnitude should engage attention, i will address clearly identifiable areas currently being looked at by market participants and the present status of the indian economy in respect of each of these. macro - economy the annual growth rate of gross domestic product has been in the range of 7 to 7. 5 per cent during the last three years ( i. e., fiscal years 1994 - 95 to 1996 - 97 ). for the current year, estimates range between 5. 0 to 6. 0 per cent. investments as a percentage of gdp has also been reasonably steady in the period at around 26 per cent on average. the current account deficit as a per cent of gdp has been consistently in the range of 1 to 1. 8 per cent, and has averaged 1. 3 per cent, and the current year ’ s position will not be very different. the fiscal deficit of the government of india as a percentage of gdp has come down gradually from 6. 1 per cent in 1994 - 95 to 5. 5 per cent in 1995 - 96 and 5. 0 per cent in 1996 - 97. though there are

a wider level, however, there is a feeling that the customer does not get satisfactory service even after demanding it and there has been a disenfranchisement of the depositor. in this background, i would like to briefly touch upon the enduring role played by the rbi in enabling customer empowerment and the re - enfranchisement of the customer – who, as the adage goes, is the king! the reserve bank ’ s enduring and abiding concern for the quality of services extended to the bank customers has been reflected in its ongoing regulatory initiatives taken, over the decades, from time to time. the issue of services rendered by the banks to the common person dates back to 1970s when the r. k. talwar committee was appointed in 1975, followed by the goiporia committee constituted in 1990. subsequently, pursuant to the report of the committee on financial system ( the first narasimham committee - 1991 ), wideranging financial sector reforms were also initiated, which were expected to spur competition in the banking sector through deregulation and entry of new private sector banks, which, in turn, was expected to lead to provision of high - quality customer service to meet the longstanding aspirations of the bank customers. however, there has been an increasing realisation, both in india and several other countries, that the forces of competition alone do not ensure the fair treatment of the customer or adequate quality of customer service, at a justifiable price, determined in a transparent manner. this has, therefore necessitated interventions from the regulators to institutionalise a mechanism for securing better customer service for the public at large. institutional infrastructure for ensuring customer service let me briefly recount here some of the initiative of the rbi to put in place the requisite institutional mechanisms aimed at improving the customer service in the banking sector. banking ombudsman scheme the reserve bank had introduced the banking ombudsman scheme for the first time way back in 1995 to provide an expeditious and inexpensive forum to bank customers for resolution of their complaints relating to banking services. the scheme was revised in 2002 mainly to cover regional rural banks and to permit a review of the banking ombudsman's awards against the banks by the reserve bank. the rbi recently announced the revised banking ombudsman scheme, 2006, effective from january 1, 2006, which has much wider scope and includes several new areas of customer complaints. the scheme is applicable to all commercial banks, regional rural banks and