New Delhi: Government will support public
sector banks to merge if they wanted, provided they fulfilled
RBI and SEBI guidelines, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee
said on Monday.
"If someone decides to merge, if we see it is in
conformity with our policy and if we find that parameters are
being followed as per the SEBI and RBI guidelines", then
government would play a "supportive role", he said in reply to
a calling attention in the Lok Sabha.
Maintaining that the government has itself not taken any
initiative to ask public sector banks to go for merger, he
said it did not intend to interfere in their routine financial
activities.
"The current policy of the government on consolidation
leaves the initiative for consolidation to come from the
management of the banks themselves, with the government
playing a supportive role as the common shareholder," he said,
asserting that no directive on consolidation was being issued
by the government or the RBI.
The boards of the banks have to take a decision in this
regard "based on the synergy levels of merging or
consolidating entities", he said.
The calling attention motion was moved by CPI leader
Gurudas Dasgupta who asked whether the government had taken
any initiative "overtly or covertly" to merge various public
sector banks resulting in "discontent" amongst the bank
employees.
PTI
First Published: Monday, December 07, 2009, 14:07