TOWARDS TRANSFORMING BANKS AS PUBLIC UTILITY INSTITUTIONS

Foreword For any serious student of the banking sector in India, especially its history and stagewise development, there can be no better guide than the monumental work undertaken by Prof R Bandyopadhyay. Many of us, including those that either claim to know, or are expected to know, the significant developments in the history of banking, will be overwhelmed by the wealth of carefully researched material that the author has brought into this book. The initial parts of the book contain interesting insights into the development of money, finance and banking in several other countries. What is most germane to our present context is the mate-rial that the author has put together on public sector banking. Many persons oppose public sector ownership of banks because their economic philosophy persuades them to do so. Some oth-ers oppose the public sector presence in the banking space merely because it is fashionable to do so. The author brings out, in considerable detail, the now accepted position that social control of banks was a half-way house, that did not deliver on the objectives with which it was put in place. Bank nationalisa-tion, which followed, has, over the years, found significantly de-creased acceptance among the normally well-informed and the uninformed.