Finance Minister Jaswant Singh on Tuesday ruled out the merger of IDBI with IFCI in the near future and said all efforts would be made to restore the state of health of these organisations.

Answering B Janardhana Poojari and Pranab Kumar Mukherjee during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, the finance minister said if the question was regarding the merger of these two institutions, the answer was there was no such proposal because there could be no synergisation of sick financial institutions.

The first requirement was to eliminate the crippled institution and bring them back to the state of good health. Moreover, the merger issue of IDBI and IFCI was pending before the Parliamentary Standing Committee of the finance ministry.

He also said that the IDBI would not become a retail bank and would continue to provide nucleus for refinancing.

UNI