Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said country need strong banks rather than numerically a larger number. Addressing the media at the end of two day Gyan Sangam programme in Gurgaon, Mr Jaitley said, consolidation in the banking sector was discussed at the meeting and bankers have suggested for setting up an expert group to look into the issue. He said, government will consider this suggestion for bank consolidation.<br/><br/>Mr Jaitley said, in the current global scenario, bankers have to take all the measures to clean up the books by effective recovery. The Minister said, there are enough steps that banks can take to recover bad loans under existing norms and asked banks not to write off bad loans. <br/><br/>Finance Minister said, the other idea which was suggested at the meeting was to reward the public sector bank employees with Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). Mr Jaitley said, this proposal is under active consideration of the government.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said there are enough steps that banks can take to recover bad loans under existing norms. Speaking in the second "Gyan Sangam", the retreat of heads of public sector financial institutions in Gurgaon, the Finance minister asked banks not to write off bad loans. <br/><br/>He also said nobody is being spared in the long run though. The minister said, some banks are trying and they get the money back. He said government will consult expert group on bank consolidation. He also said that for good health of banks Government is keeping banks immune to politics.