Govt shouldn’t do biz where it is not meant to be: FM
1 min read . Updated: 29 Apr 2023, 12:04 AM IST
PremiumShe said the current political discourse lacks cordiality, and she can’t imagine passing a cup of coffee to a rival.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said the Union government was committed to privatization.
Speaking at the launch of veteran banker Narayanan Vaghul’s book Reflections, Sitharaman said the government believes that it should not be doing business where it is not meant to be.
“Since 1947, for the first time, the word privatization was used in the 2021 budget. PM Modi has the vision to say that government should not be doing business where it is not meant to be," said Sitharaman.
She said the current political discourse lacks cordiality, and she can’t imagine passing a cup of coffee to a rival.
Recalling that the House in Tamil Nadu and Madras Presidency used to have strong debates between Communist leader P. Ramamurthi and Congress Party’s Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Sitharaman said Rajaji had once requested his rival to stop and offered a cup of coffee. “I can’t imagine giving a cup of coffee (now)... it can be grossly misunderstood," Sitharaman said.
The event saw the attendance of top officials of the banking industry, including Ajay Piramal, chairman of Piramal Group; Deepak Parekh, HDFC Ltd chairman; Kalpana Morparia, former chairperson of J. P. Morgan, South and Southeast Asia; Sandeep Bakshi, ICICI Bank CEO, and former SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya.
Speaking on the state of the banking sector, Vaghul said industrial houses should not be allowed in banking. “One of the reasons why state ownership of banks became popular was because industrial houses did not do well. They used to talk about in professional banking circles that things are not all right with banks owned by industrial houses," he said.
Vaghul added that the share of state-owned banks in the banking system would reduce as private-sector banks grow.