Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced during the budget speech that besides IDBI Bank, 2 more public banks will be privatized in the next financial year. However, he has not named the banks. In such a situation, questions are arising in the mind of the bank customers as well as the investors that which are those two banks, which will become private banks in the coming days.
Actually, now the news is that the central government has shortlisted 4 public banks, it is being said that two of these banks will be privatized in the next financial year. The remaining two banks will be further privatized. Among the banks that have been selected for privatization are Bank of Maharashtra, Bank of India- BOI, Indian Overseas Bank and Central Bank of India. ) Are included.
According to the news agency Reuters report, out of these 4 banks shortlisted, the privatization of 2 banks could happen next financial year. However, the government has not yet formally made public the names of the private banks. According to sources, the process of privatization of banks is expected to start in 5 to 6 months. The government had announced the privatization of two banks in this budget, while two banks were also mentioned in the previous budget.
Reuters report quoted 3 sources as saying that the central government may initially approve the privatization of small banks. From this it will be known that what kind of problems are encountered during privatization. Privatization of small banks will reduce the risk slightly.
Not only this, bank unions are opposing privatization. Because privatization is a threat to the jobs of bank employees. According to sources, with the success of small banks, after privatization, the process of selling to big banks can also start in the coming years. Apart from this, privatization of banks is politically risky for the government.
Significantly, the government has set a target of raising Rs 1.75 lakh crore from disinvestment in the financial year 2021-22. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced this in the budget. He informed that apart from IDBI Bank, 2 more public sector banks will be privatized in the next financial year.
In fact, this government had made it clear long ago that the number of government banks would be reduced. In this episode, last year, 10 banks were merged to form 4 banks. Now the government wants to get rid of some more public banks. According to experts, the government wants to get rid of those banks, which are constantly running in deficit. The government is not in a position to provide constant help to banks that are in loss.
Currently there are 12 public sector banks in the country. Except a few banks, the condition of most banks is bad. For which big announcements are made in the budget every year, in this budget also the government has announced 20 thousand crore re-capitalization.
At present, by December 2020, the government has more than 70 per cent stake in at least 10 banks. Whereas there are eight banks in which the government has more than 80 per cent stake and the government has more than 90 per cent stake in three banks, and those banks are Indian Overseas Bank, UCO Bank and Bank of Maharashtra.
