The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has taken several measures to protect the country's financial system and support the economy after COVID-19 crisis, Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Saturday. "Both conventional and unconventional liquidity measures were taken to boost market confidence and ease liquidity stress. As a result, the Indian economy has started showing signs of going back to normalcy in response to the staggered easing of restrictions," he said while addressing the 7th SBI Banking and Economics Conclave here through video-conferencing.

Das said that COVID-19 is the worst health and economic crisis in the last 100 years with unprecedented negative consequences for output, jobs and well being. It dented the existing world order, global value chains, labour and capital movements across the globe. "COVID-19 pandemic perhaps represents so far the biggest test of robustness and resilience of our economic and financial system," he said. Even before the onset of the virus, the central bank had taken several measures to reverse the slowdown in the economy. "The lagged impact of these measures was about to propel a cyclical turnaround in economic activity when COVID-19 brought with it calamities and miseries, endangering of lives and livelihood of people."