‘Number of public sector banks to come down to 8-10’
Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said that the number of PSU banks will come down dramatically from 27 to around 8-10. Addressing a gathering, which included entrepreneurs, at an iSpirt conference, he said that when the dust settles we will have maybe 8 or 10 very competitive banks.
He added that the government is doing things necessary to ensure that PSU banks are vibrant competitors. “We are now in the third phase of the reform process where we have gone through the governance and management reforms, and we have gone through the asset quality review and the stress testing. Now, we are in the consolidation phase where we are trying to ensure that at the end of this consolidation you will have a set of very competitive banks,” he said.
Sinha also said that the inactive accounts under the Jan Dhan Yojana have come down drastically. “Currently, the number of inactive accounts are 22 crore, compared to 70 crore a few months back,” Sinha said and added that the scheme has distributed loans to small entrepreneurs in Karnataka with loans worth ₹8,984 crore disbursed in 2015-16. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had, in August 2014, launched the zero balance scheme, with an intention to bring banking and related financial services such as financial literacy, access to credit, insurance and pension facility to every Indian family.
Jan-Dhan in States
This, government officials said had a lot to do States such as Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan opting for Jan Dhan Yojana. According to government data, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal account for 24 per cent of total accounts opened. Currently, around 219 million accounts have been opened under Jan-Dhan Yojana, of which 57 million are zero-balance accounts. Uttar Pradesh has 33 million accounts, followed by West Bengal and Rajasthan with 36 million accounts each.
In terms of total deposits, ₹37,775 crore has been collected under the scheme. Of this, Uttar Pradesh accounted for ₹5,916-crore deposits, followed by West Bengal and Rajasthan with ₹4,932 crore and ₹ 2,933 crore respectively. The scheme had under some pressure as majority of the accounts were inactive.
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