Niti Aayog has recommended privatisation of 3 PSU banks.

There has been no official conformation from the RBI and the Ministry of Finance regarding the privatisation of PSU banks. The claim is unverifiable.

There has been no official conformation from the RBI and the Ministry of Finance regarding the privatisation of PSU banks. The claim is unverifiable. In 2019, ten state-owned banks were merged into four. Since then, media reports have speculated that the government may sell stakes in more public-sector banks.

There have been no concrete announcements from the government about the privatization of PSUs except an indication given by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in May 2020. The minister, while announcing a stimulus package to counter the Covid-19 impact, said that the government intended to undertake a new public sector enterprise (PSE) policy under which there will be at least one state-run company in strategic sectors. In contrast, PSEs in non-strategic sectors will be privatized, suggesting that it would open up public sector banks in India to privatization.

The NITI Aayog clarified in an RTI reply on June 30 that it has not submitted any recommendation regarding privatization of any public sector bank, reported The Hindu Business Line on July 5.

On July 20, 2020, a Reuters report citing unnamed government and banking sources said that India is looking to privatize more than half of its state-owned banks to reduce the number of government-owned lenders to just five as part of an overhaul of the banking industry. The first part of the plan would be to sell majority stakes in Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, UCO Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Punjab & Sind Bank. The same day, a Twitter user named Vaibhav Kumar posted that the NITI Aayog had replied to his RTI request stating that 'NITI Aayog's recommendations to the Cabinet on strategic disinvestment of Public Sector Enterprises do not include any public sector banks.'

However, the authenticity of the RTI response by NITI Aayog is yet to be confirmed. Logically has reached out to the RTI respondent for authenticating the same. A report published on July 31, 2020, by CNBC-TV18 stated that the NITI Aayog had recommended that the government privatize Punjab & Sind Bank, UCO Bank and Bank of Maharashtra. The report cited unnamed sources and said that the recommendation was made during a presentation to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and union finance ministry functionaries.

A report published by LiveMint on August 18, 2020, stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office has asked officials to speed up the process of trimming government stakes in Punjab & Sind Bank , Bank of Maharashtra, UCO Bank and IDBI Bank. Citing unnamed government sources, the report said the prime minister's office had written a letter to India's finance ministry about the same in August 2020.

The Ministry of Finance or the RBI have not yet issued any statements about the privatization of PSU banks. Owing to the contradictory reports, the claim is unverifiable at the moment.