“This (capital infusion into select PSBs) will be done by April-May in the first phase. We are looking at putting-in around Rs 9,000 crore,” Financial Services Secretary R Gopalan told reporters here. In the Budget, the government has earmarked Rs 16,500 crore for recapitalisation of state-run banks, to enable them maintain eight per cent Tier-I capital by March 31, 2011.
However, the government is yet to decide which banks it would infuse funds into and the amount for each lender, Gopalan said. “That is something I cannot say. Calculations will have to go on now. We have to find out, as on March 31, what are the outstandings and CRAR (capital-to-risk-weighted assets ratio). These issues have to be sorted out,” he said.
Likely recepients
While Gopalan would not divulge the names of banks likely to receive capital, it is widely expected that Uco Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Indian Overseas Bank, Syndicate Bank, Dena Bank, among others, will make the list. Gopalan was talking to reporters here after a meeting with the RBI top brass, senior bankers and Unique Identification Authority of India Chairman Nandan Nilekani, on the issue of financial inclusion. The meeting discussed ways of new technology models for spreading banking activities in unbanked areas as promised by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Budget.
The government and the RBI have chalked out a roadmap to take banking services to an already identified 60,000 unbanked areas with a population of over 2000 by 2012, Gopalan said. “The commitment made was that all habitations having a population more than 2,000 will be covered by 2012. So we have a roadmap for it,” Gopalan said. The meeting was attended by the RBI Governor, deputy governors, top bankers including SBI Chairman O P Bhatt and Union Bank Chief M V Nair and Nandan Nilekani.
Press Trust of India
