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MUMBAI - India must seek sustainable growth through medium-term investments and sound financial and structural reforms once the global pandemic is over, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Wednesday.

"As we recover, we must deal with the legacies of the crisis and create conditions for strong, inclusive and sustainable growth," Das said at an event organised by the All India Management Association.

"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," he added.

Das listed several dynamic sectors which underpin India's prospects in the post-pandemic world in his address including information technology, digital innovation, manufacturing, green technology, renewable energy, global trade and a resilient financial system.

"To achieve our objectives in all the areas ... we need a big push to infrastructure particularly in areas of health, education, low carbon and digital economy in addition to transport and communication," Das said.

He added that inclusive growth will require co-operation and participation of all stakeholders and that a major challenge to inclusiveness in the post-pandemic world would come from the fillip to automation provided by the pandemic itself.

"Greater automation would lead to overall productivity gain, but it may also lead to slack in the labour market. Such a scenario calls for significant skilling/training of our workforce," Das said.

While the pandemic has created enormous challenges, it can also act as an inflection point in the course of development, Das said.

"Income and job creation with digitalisation and innovation can bring about a new age of prosperity for a large number of people," he added.

(Reporting by Swati Bhat; Editing by Hugh Lawson)