Leave LIC alone

The insurer's purchase of IDBI Bank is a bad proposal

One of the options on the table for the revival of the troubled IDBI Bank is reportedly its purchase by the Life Insurance Corporation of India Limited, or LIC. Currently, India’s largest, and publicly-owned, insurance company has a stake in IDBI Bank that is just less than 11 per cent. IDBI Bank is not covered by the Bank Nationalisation Act and thus the government sees it as a politically easier target for a change of control. Then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had, in his 2016-17 Budget speech, said that reduction of the government stake in IDBI Bank below 50 per