Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday allayed apprehension that privatisation of state-owned banks would hurt financial inclusion and national interest.

She said the bank nationalisation done in 1969 has not yielded the desired result as far as financial inclusion was concerned. Addressing the student at the Diamond Jubilee Valedictory Lecture at Delhi School of Economics (DSE), University of Delhi here, she said that nationalisation did help in pushing priority sector lending and government programmes but government control made public sector banks unprofessional. Despite 50 years of nationalisation, the objectives that were not entirely achieved, she said, adding, ”after… we professionalised the banks, those objectives are still being beautifully achieved.

"So, this perception

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