Despite having been forced to beat a retreat on the pro-corporate farm laws, the Modi government is aggressively pushing for reversal of nationalisation in another key sector: banking. Five decades after the historic bank nationalisation, the government now desperately wants to bring down the minimum government holding in public sector banks from 51 percent to 26 percent apart from carrying out outright privatisation of select public sector banks.

Have we ever heard of a deal where the seller has to shell out a large sum in exchange for handing over a huge legacy enterprise worth Rs. 52000 crores of assets and solid infrastructure? This is exactly what is happening in Modi’s much-touted ‘New India’; the government is selling the iconic Air India to the Tata Group on terms which will result in losses for the public exchequer.

The present coal crisis, which has pushed the thermal power plants to the verge of closure in many states, is another addition to the list of devastating outcomes of the Modi government’s policies over the last more than seven years.

(Based on the talk delivered at the webinar hosted by the West Bengal unit of All India Bank Employees’ Association - AIBEA on 15 September 2021)