Banking reforms underway: Arun Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, while speaking at the Make in India week, said he would soon announce a series of banking sector reforms. However, the finance minister did not elaborate on what reforms could be announced. 

Recently, there has been a spate of poor quarterly earnings reported by the public sector banks (PSBs) as almost all the state-run banks have declared alarming level of stressed loans on their books. As a result, the Reserve Bank of India governor asked these banks to set aside some money from their profits towards compensation of non-performing assets, the Economic Times reports. 

Talking about the way the public sector banks operate, the finance minister said the banks should be more professional, and added that the government should reduce its stake in the banks. 

Jaitley said further that the government was moving towards a market-oriented economy and reforms, but would also take into account all the shareholders. 

The finance minister will present the union budget on Feb.29. "If you look at the sum total of all measures, you will see the government has moved in one single direction. It has not erred in reversing that direction," Jaitley said during the event in Mumbai. 

"The government is conscious of that fact that the tax regime has to be predictable and stable. Unreasonable taxation is not the best way to increase revenue," he further added. 

The government will focus on rural demand and its attention would be on the rural sector, he said.