Time to privatise state-owned banks in taxpayers interest: Nandan Nilekani

Infosys chairman and Unique ID project architect Nandan Nilekani on Tuesday said the "original rationale" for bank nationalisation has ceased to exist and that privatisation is the way forward the public sector lenders citing the taxpayers' interest.

Nilekani, who contested the last Lok Sabha polls on a Congress ticket, said banks were nationalised over five decades ago because they were focusing only on big industries and ignoring smaller ones. The 21 state-run banks had suffered reverses because of lending to large companies.

Introduction of technology-based solutions also makes it possible to cater to the requirements of the smaller borrowers, who were neglected in the pre-nationalisation era, the technocrat said.

"The original rationale has gone away and so let most banks function on market principles owned by the general public," he told reporters, adding privatising them is also in the interest of taxpayers.