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New Delhi, May 15 (UNI) Finance Minister P Chidambaram today assured the Lok Sabha that there was no move on the part of the Government to take away the public sector character of the banks, but its intention was to give greater degree of autonomy to subsidiary banks on a par with nationalised banks.

Replying to a discussion on the State Bank of India (Subsidiary Banks Laws) Amendment Bill 2006, which was eventually passed by the House, the Finance Minister said the Bill was no different from the Bills on other nationalised banks passed by the House earlier. The Government was in no hurry to get the Bill passed, he added.

Mr Chidambaram said the Bill had been referred to the Standing Committee which came out with its unanimous report making some recommendations which had served as the basis for the proposals of the Bill.

The Finance Minister made it clear that the Government had no intention to merge the subsidiaries with the SBI which had promoted these banks as there would be a serious objection to the same by the subsidiaries. Stating that it was a legacy issue, he said the SBI's share in the subsidiaries would never go below 51 rpt 51 per cent as was done by the NDA Government earlier.

Mr Chidambaram clarified that it was the Government of India which would be the owner of these subsidiary banks. The State Bank of India, he said, would always remain the majority shareholder in these subsidiary banks and thus its virtual owner.

The purpose of scaling down the shares of the SBI from 55 per cent to 51 per cent in the subsidiary banks was to enable them to go to market to raise resources to bring them on a par with nationalised banks, the Minister said.

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