Govt to go ahead with PSU bank merger: FM
The government said on Monday it is examining the possibility of further consolidation in the public sector banking space without waiting for their finances to improve.
Merger of five associate banks and Bhartiya Mahila Bank with the country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) took place in April.
“Internally there was a thinking after the SBI amalgamation took place to wait for the rest till the health of the banks improve. We have now relooked at the whole system and there are some institutions within the public sector banks which can be consolidated even in the present circumstances. We are seriously examining them,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told CNBC TV18.
On privatisation of IDBI Bank, Jaitley said initially the government had moved substantially but the process got slowed down as it had to decide on the complicated issues related with large real estate assets of the bank in Mumbai and elsewhere. Referring to the complications, he said, “Can you without segregating that (real estate), sell just the banking system which in the present state is not in the best of health. That process got slowed down a little”.
Jaitley also made a strong case for sale of Air India as he asked how fair it was to use ~55,000-60,000 crore of taxpayers' money on the national carrier for having just 14 per cent market share. Stating that the government should have exited Air India 15 years back, the finance minister said he personally concurred with the NITI Aayog’s view of privatising the debt- laden carrier, but the government will take a call on the issue. He said civil aviation is turning into a good success story, with a lot of private sector players running “very efficient airlines”.