Govt has no business to be in business: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the government has no business to be in business and his administration is committed to privatising all PSUs barring the bare minimum in four strategic sectors."It is government's duty to support enterprises and businesses. But it is not essential that it should own and run enterprises," he said. Modi also said the Centre's policy is to either monetise or modernise public sector enterprises, with the intent that the government has "no business to be in business".Speaking at a webinar on privatisation organised  by the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), Modi said the Budget has given a clear roadmap to take India to a high growth trajectory.Fiscal support to sick PSUs puts burden on the economy and public sector units should not be run just because of legacy, the Prime Minister said, adding many PSUs are loss-making and supported by taxpayers' money.The government has many underutilised and untilised assets and 100 assets would be monetised to garner Rs 2.5 lakh crore, Modi added.

Meanwhile, the Government has asked Public Sector Banks to facilitate quick and easy loan disbursal under the PM-SVANidhi scheme. The Housing and Urban Development Ministry in a letter written to the banks has suggested several measures to increase the outreach of the scheme extending collateral free loans to the street vendors in the country. It said that since the street vendors mostly rely on credit from informal sources, not much emphasis should be laid on their CIBIL score alone for disbursement of loans. It also added that the banks need to review their guidelines for extending credit to the vendors having low CIBIL score under this scheme. The Housing and Urban Development Ministry has also informed that camps will be held in various cities across the country by the bank officials to facilitate a one stop solution for the beneficiaries.