INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
IRDAI does not allow LIC or any other insurer to own more than 15 per cent in any company.Mumbai: The government today sounded evasive about
the media reports that it was planning to ask LIC to take a controlling stake in the crippled IDBI Bank, saying the boards of the respective
entities will take a call on the matter
"Both IDBI Bank and LIC are independent organisations
We have left all the decisions to bank boards and we are not going to micromanage them," a senior finance ministry official told reporters
on the sidelines of the two-day annual summit of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.When pressed that both the entities are
government-owned, the official quipped does that mean there cannot have business relationship between two government entitiesThere have been
reports that having failed to a get a buyer for its stake in IDBI Bank, the government might ask LIC, which already owns over 10 per cent in
the infra-lender turned commercial bank, to take at least 40 per cent more in it, something it had done with Axis Bank in the past.The media
reports also said the government had sought the views of insurance regulator IRDAI and markets watchdog Sebi on the move
IRDAI does not allow LIC or any other insurer to own more than 15 per cent in any company.On the Sunil Mehta committee, set up to draft
guidelines for a bad bank, the official said within a short period the panel has "come up with a fantastic report".Interim finance minister
Piyush Goyal on June 8 had announced setting up of a committee under the chairmanship of Punjab National Bank's non-executive chairman Sunil
Mehta to make a draft on setting up an asset reconstruction or an asset management company for faster resolution of bad loans.On the special
dispensation that power companies have been demanding to tide over the bad debt problem, the official said there is an Allahabad High Court
judgement and we have to respect that but added quickly that the banking secretary will sit down to find a solution.(Except for the
headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
