Cabinet briefing Updates: Bank mergers not to affect customers, assures FM Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced today that the Cabinet has approved amalgamation of 10 public sector banks into four banks. Sitharaman also announced that 72 changes have been approved in Companies Act.

Here are all the Live updates:

03:47 PM: Scheme of amalgamation for banks will be rolled out without affecting current operations, assures the FM.

03:45 PM: The average retail loan sanctioning time has come down from 23 to 11 days after amalgamation of Bank of Baroda, says the FM.

03:40 PM: We're exempting companies that have the obligation of spending Rs 50 lakh or less from the requirement of having a CSR committee, add the Finance Minister.

03:34 PM: Quantum of penalty reduced in 6 defaults decriminalised earlier, FM Sitharaman says.

03:33 PM: 5 offences will be dealth with under alternative frameworks, says the FM.

03:33 PM: We have limiting the punishment for 11 compoundable offences to only fine by removing imprisonment, says FM Sitharaman.

03:31 PM: We are omitting 7 compoundable offences altogether, says FM Sitharaman.

03:30 PM: We will recatrgorise 23 offences, out of 66 compoundable offences under the Act and they will be dealt with via an in-house adjudicating framework, says the Finance Minister.

03:28 PM: The major thrust, of course is at ease of doing business and decriminalising, says FM Sitharaman

03:26 PM: The priority is to decriminalise the Companies Act, says the Finance Minister

03:25 PM: FM Nirmala Sitharaman says that 72 changes to 65 sections of the Companies Act have been suggested

03:15 PM: Cabinet allows NRIs to invest upto 100 % in Air India as against 49%, says Prakash Javadekar