'SBI Mutual Fund has no plan to launch Shariah-compliant fund'

SBI Mutual Fund has no plans at present to launch Shariah-compliant equity fund, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha informed the Lok Sabha today.
SBI Mutual Fund had taken approval from SEBI to launch SBI Shariah compliant fund in 2014-15 financial year. However, the same was not launched.
"The validity period of approval got elapsed," he said in a written reply, and added, "SBI Mutual Fund has stated that currently there is no proposal to launch such a fund".
Replying to another question, Sinha said Allahabad Bank, Union Bank of India and Bank of India have "requested for exemption" from payment of dividend on account of decrease in profit due to higher provisioning against non-performing assets.

"These banks want to improve capital adequacy by ploughing back the profits as they are not finding conducive conditions to raise capital from the market," he said.
As per the Budget Estimates 2015-16, the projections from 'dividend and profit' to government from public sector companies and banks have been pegged at about Rs 1,00,651 crore.