Centre to set up high-level banking panel for Viksit Bharat

Viksit Bharat would require significant financial resources and a robust credit ecosystem. Banks, she said, must be capable of supporting infrastructure development, industry, entrepreneurship and individual borrowers, while ensuring financial inclusion and consumer protection

The Union government will soon set up a High-Level Committee on Banking for Viksit Bharat to chart a long-term roadmap for strengthening India’s banking system in line with the country’s development goals, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. The panel will examine how banks can be expanded and modernised to meet the growing financing needs of a developed India.

Sitharaman said the objective of the proposed committee is to ensure that the banking sector is adequately prepared to support economic transformation. She clarified that the exercise should not be viewed narrowly as a move towards merging public sector banks. Instead, the focus would be on building capacity within the banking system to provide large-scale funding, wider credit access and effective banking services across the country.

The Finance Minister stressed that achieving the vision of Viksit Bharat would require significant financial resources and a robust credit ecosystem. Banks, she said, must be capable of supporting infrastructure development, industry, entrepreneurship and individual borrowers, while ensuring financial inclusion and consumer protection.

The Budget also outlined steps to improve scale and efficiency in public sector non-banking financial companies, particularly in the power sector. It proposed restructuring the Power Finance Corporation and the Rural Electrification Corporation, which play a key role in funding power projects.

REC became a subsidiary of PFC in 2019 after the latter acquired a majority stake from the government. Recently, the PFC board granted in-principle approval for the merger of REC with itself, following the Budget announcement.