Indian prime minister keen to ramp up stake sale of four banks: report

The government is pushing for privatization to help raise funds for its budget.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office has asked officials to speed up the process of trimming government stakes in at least four primarily state-owned banks within the current fiscal year, reports Bloomberg, according to two officials familiar with the discussions.

The sources named the lenders are Punjab & Sind Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, UCO Bank, and IDBI Bank, in which the government owns majority stakes through direct and indirect holdings.

India is pushing the privatisation of state-owned financial companies to help raise funds for its budget amidst a fall in tax collections due to the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.

The prime minister’s office wrote a letter to India’s finance ministry earlier in early August to expedite the process of privatising these lenders in the current financial year, which ends in March 2021, said one government source with direct knowledge of the matter.

“The process of privatising the banks has started,” the person said, adding some consultations had already take place.

Here’s more from Reuters.