PTI
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley interacts with RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan
during the Twelfth Convocation of Indira Gandhi Institute of
Development and Research in Mumbai on Friday.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan on Friday said
that the decision of the Government to give freedom to public sector
banks (PSBs) to function independently is a “land mark decision”.
He was speaking at the convocation ceremony of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) here.
The Finance Ministry had issued a direction to banks recently asking
them to take decisions without fear or favour and to ignore extraneous
considerations in commercial decisions, in the aftermath of the ‘Gyan
Sangam’, which was attended by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mr. Modi said at the Gyan Sangam, the two-day bankers’ meet arranged to
discuss banking reforms, that the Government will not interfere in the
functioning of public sector banks. He also called for ending “lazy
banking” and said that banks must prioritise lending to
employment-generating sectors.
Dr. Rajan said that institution plays an important role in the
intellectual development of students. While asking students to pay back
to the society, Dr. Rajan remembered, institution builders like Dr.
Varghese Kurien, who built up a brand like Amul, T. N. Seshan, former
Election Commissioner and Vinod Rai, former CAG.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who was the Chief Guest at the
convocation, congratulated the institute for the gender “reverse
disparity” in favour of the women. Over 70 per cent of the students who
passed out today were women.
Mr. Jaitley also said that the election results recently proved that
castes and dynasties will no more attract voters as they are interested
only in governance and economic growth.
Meanwhile visiting the LIC corporate Office here, Mr. Jaitley said that
one-third of the country would soon be insured by LIC by partnering with
Prime Minister's Jan DhanYojana.
He said that LIC was a role model of how a public sector institution
should function and appreciated claims performance of LIC, which was
much better than the private sector.
The Finance Minister also said that millions had built their houses with
LIC’s support and people’s savings were channelised and invested in
infrastructure.
LIC also generated employment directly through employees and agents and indirectly by investing in the economy.
