It is welcome news that the Cabinet has now approved the merger of state run Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda. Post amalgamation, the combined entity is expected to become a banking behemoth, globally competitive and the third largest lender in the country. Consolidation in the public sector banking space has been widely debated for a long time now. What was lacking earlier was the political will.

Consolidation would help achieve the economies of scale besides reaping host of other accompanying benefits as well like cost, product and technology efficiencies. However there are also challenges of geographical relocations, HR etc that will have to met. It would be desirable to have the internal restructuring of the banks concerned taken up for merger, as a prelude. What the country needs today is a small number of bigger banks instead of large number of smaller banks. Bigger banks will have a strong resource base and a higher risk bearing appetite to confront the enormous uncertainties and greater challenges with relative ease.

Bigger banks have the ability to fund the big ticket cross border acquisitions. This three way mega merger marks a historic step towards consolidation of banking operations in India and will further strengthen the Indian banking sector.

Ideally, in the present context, the country can have about nine to 10 strong big banks of the size SBI. Consolidation is now also aided by the fact that the new small finance banks increasingly occupy the retail lending space in rural, semi urban, and also urban micro markets and in a way freeing up this responsibility from large PSU banks.

Nagpur

With cut-throat competition prevailing in the aviation sector, the national carrier has resorted to debt-restructuring mechanisms and application of mixed strategies including strategic disinvestment, to reduce the working capital gap and overheads towards support/maintenance of non-core assets/entities, in order to concentrate on key operations.

Financial package, brand-refreshing exercise, willingness to engineer organisational/governance reforms and initiatives to strengthen workforce/improve staff-morale promise to render a robust long-term revival plan. It has become indispensable for the lead carrier to improve throughput/performance and position itself strategically to preserve global-competitiveness. Onboarding reputed stakeholders can attract high-quality investments and encourage a profit-oriented business culture in the longer run. It is also important that authorities ensure hedging/insurance of capital against risks and increase shareholder-value by reducing net liabilities. Fulfillment of larger financial/operational objectives and an enhanced consumer experience, is important to overcome chronic impediments and attain a complete turnaround.

New Delhi

In the present technology-driven era, it not a surprise to see working hours extending beyond office schedules with e- mails directly going to phones. This has given rise to a call around the globe for reduced working hours considering its positive impact on workers’ productivity. In this context, the Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule moved a private member Bill in the Lok Sabha to give employees the right to not respond to communication from employers after office hours. Her initiative deserves praise and merits serious consideration from our law makers. Few would dispute the detrimental impact of the pressure to respond to calls and e-mails beyond office hours, and its impact on the work-life balance of employees. It would be appropriate to quote here Bertrand Russell: “less frayed nerves, weariness and dyspepsia will make ordinary men and women more kindly and less inclined to view others with suspicion”.

Sholavandan (TN)

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