New Delhi, Feb 17 :
To facilitate privatisation of public sector banks, the government is likely to bring amendments to two legislations later this year.
Amendments would be required in the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970 and the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1980 for privatisation, sources said.These Acts led to nationalisation of banks in two phases and provisions of these laws have to be changed for privatisation of banks, they said.
As the government has already announced the list of legislative business for the Budget session, it is expected that these amendments may be introduced in the Monsoon session or later during the year, sources added.The ongoing Budget session is scheduled to take up as many as 38 Bills including the Finance Bill 2021, Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2020-21 and related Appropriation Bill, National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) Bill, 2021, and Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting Budget 2021-22 earlier this month had announced privatisation of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) as part of disinvestment drive to garner Rs 1.75 lakh crore.
“Other than IDBI Bank, we propose to take up the privatization of two Public Sector Banks and one General Insurance company in the year 2021-22,” she had said.
Later in one of the post Budget interactions, the Finance Minister had said the government will work with the Reserve Bank for execution of the bank privatisation plan announced in the Union Budget 2021-22.
