Congress to oppose govt’s move to reduce stake in 12 public sector banks
New Delhi, Jun 19 (PTI) The Congress on Friday said any move to bring down the Union government’s stake in 12 public sector banks to less than 51 per cent would continue to be resisted forcefully both in Parliament and outside.
The party asserted that the mergers in the public sector banking industry in the last seven years have been broadly accepted only because the Union government’s share was not to be reduced to below 51 per cent.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh recalled that on this day 55 years ago, then prime minister Indira Gandhi had moved decisively to nationalise 14 banks and opened a whole new chapter in India’s economic history.
“I have described the background to this momentous event based on archival material in my ‘Intertwined Lives: PN Haksar and Indira Gandhi’. DN Ghosh who played a key role along with Haksar has also left a detailed account of it in his very valuable memoir ‘No Regrets’,” he said.
IG Patel was the special secretary in the finance ministry then and he too has written about this tectonic policy shift in his ‘Glimpses of Indian Economic Policy: An Insider’s View’, Ramesh said.
Bank nationalisation had profound impacts on lending for agriculture, rural development, and other priority sectors of the economy, the Congress leader said.
He asserted that public sector institutions have served the country well in times of global financial crisis.
They have built an impressive pool of managerial expertise, he added.
Over the past seven years, there have been mergers in the public sector banking industry, Ramesh pointed out
