INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said the government was taking steps to increase confidence in financial markets.
Addressing
media on the 100 days of Modi 2.0 in Chennai, she said the government would try to frontload infrastructure spendings as much as
possible.
“We will soon come out with decisions for the realty sector
There is a need to work with other ministries too for resolution of home buyers’ issues,” said Sitharaman.
The government is also
conscious of the need to respond to the slowdown in the auto sector
“We have considered other suggestions from the auto industry,” Sitharaman said.
Auto sales witnessed steepest fall in the country in
August since the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) started recording wholesale vehicle sales data in 1997-98.
As per data
released by the industry body, vehicle sales across categories, including passenger vehicles (PVs), two-wheelers and commercial vehicles
(CVs) stood at 18,21,490 units last month against 23,82,436 units in August, 2018, a fall of 23.55 per cent.
Commenting on the recent
announcements of merger of public sector banks, she said the effective date of bank mergers would be decided by the boards of respective
“Each bank board will decide on PSU merger dates individually,” she said
She said the idea behind bank mergers was to help benefit from each other
“The government is unaware of any unhappiness yet among bank employees about these mergers,” she said.
The Central government recently
announced mega merger of 10 PSU banks into four, where Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank would be merged
become the second-largest PSB while Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank would amalgamated to make the fourth-largest PSU bank entity.
Sitharaman
said Union Bank, Corporation Bank, and Andhra Bank would be merged to make the fifth largest PSU lender while Indian Bank and Allahabad Bank
would merge to make the seventh largest PSU lender.
