Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
Niti Aayog

On Thursday, The Niti Aayog submitted a final list of the state-owned banks to be privatized in 2021 to the Core Group of Secretaries on Disinvestment. The government think tank has been assigned the task of selecting the names of two public sector banks and one general insurance company that will be selected for the privatization as announced in the Union Budget 2021.

“We have submitted the names (of PSU banks) to the Core Group of Secretaries on Disinvestment,” a Niti Aayog official said. 

After getting the clearance from the Core Group of Secretaries, headed by the Cabinet Secretary, the final list of names will proceed to Alternative Mechanism for its approval and at last to the Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister for its final approval, the official added. 

The Core Group of Secretaries’ members include economic affairs secretary, revenue secretary, expenditure secretary, corporate affairs secretary, legal affairs secretary, Department of Public Enterprises secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) secretary and an administrative department secretary.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman assured in a media interaction that employee’s interest will be kept in mind. She said, “Interests of workers of banks which are likely to be privatised will be protected whether their salaries or scale or pension all will be taken care of.” 

Explaining the reason and logic behind the privatisation, Sitharaman had said that banks in such a huge country as India must also be bigger, just like the State Bank of India (SBI). 

“We need banks which are going to be able to scale up… We want banks that are going to be able to meet the aspirational needs of this country,” Sitharaman had said, adding that a lot of brainstorming and time has been put on the decision to turn some public sector banks into private. 

By Harshita Sharma

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