SBI launches CHAKRA to fund sunrise sectors with ₹100 trn output over 5 yrs

State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, on Saturday launched CHAKRA — a Centre of Excellence for financing sunrise sectors including renewable energy, advanced cell chemistry and battery storage, electric mobility, green hydrogen, semiconductors, decarbonisation, smart infrastructure, and data centre infrastructure. These sectors are critical to India’s economic transformation, with their combined potential estimated at around ₹100 trillion over the next five years.

“The debt capital required will probably be lower because these structures cannot be funded by debt capital alone,” said C S Setty, Chairman, SBI. He added that the bank has estimated a lendable opportunity of around ₹20–22 trillion over the next five years in these sunrise sectors.

“We are also part of the policy-making process in terms of financing these sectors, particularly the new risks associated with them, the emerging technologies, and how we build patient capital structures — not necessarily only through loans. This could involve mezzanine financing or bringing in other capital structures,” Setty said.

SBI has signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with 21 financial institutions. Under these agreements, their project finance teams will work alongside the SBI team stationed at CHAKRA, enabling capacity building as well as co-financing.

Among global banks, Japanese lenders such as SMBC and MUFG have signed up, along with several state-owned domestic lenders including PFC, REC, NaBFID and others.

Setty also said the bank is in talks with European and American banks for potential tie-ups.

“Japanese banks have been focusing on Indian infrastructure for a long time, so we felt they understand the Indian market, Indian infrastructure, and Indian sunrise sectors better,” he said.

According to Setty, capital for these sectors cannot come solely from deposit-driven asset build-up.

“Today, we are able to build the project financing portfolio because we have very sticky deposits, particularly savings deposits. Retail term deposits are also largely stable in the banking system,” he said. However, he added that with the financialisation of household savings, other financial institutions must also participate in infrastructure and sunrise sector investments. “To enable this, we have to provide confidence to these investors,” he said.

According to the lender, CHAKRA will drive tangible outcomes through white papers, sector reports, knowledge series, industry roundtables, and policy dialogues, supporting informed decision-making for clients, investors, and policymakers.

The Centre will facilitate structured engagement with development finance institutions, multilateral agencies, banks, NBFCs, industry bodies, corporates, start-ups, academia, and policy think tanks.

Through CHAKRA, SBI aims to build strong capabilities, support innovation-focused enterprises, and improve the flow of capital to sectors driving India’s sustainable and technology-led future. The initiative builds on the bank’s earlier Centre of Excellence for MSMEs at the State Bank Academy, SBI said.