We survived the Economic Meltdown because of Bank Nationalisation - Pranab
Addressing an INTUC meeting, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said,
++ We survived the economic meltdown because of this step. In the world's leading countries, the finance sectors have crashed but we are still surviving because we nationalised our banking sector.
++ Market economy cannot be the only end of economic reforms. Unbridled market economy is not the right thing. It cannot be the panacea for our economic problems.
++ Unless the purchasing power of the working class is raised, the country cannot prosper.
++ So our main aim is to eradicate poverty. We have the National Rural employment Guarantee Act ( NREGA ). We will introduce similar schemes to raise the purchasing power of the poor people so that companies' productions are unaffected by lack of demand.
But Pranab Babu, the big Indian Private Sector Banks like ICICI , HDFC , Axis etc., did not fail and they are not nationalised! So nationalisation alone could not have been the reason.
And Madam Gandhi Sr. nationalised the Banks more for political reasons than economic. Certainly she could not have visualised the economic turmoil that was to take place forty years later.