When it comes to banking, the Union Budget often bites off more than it can chew.
For instance, in the first Budget of the century, on February 29, 2000, then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha made a big-bang announcement of bringing down the government holding in public sector banks to 33 per cent.
Let me quote from his speech:
“The recent East Asian crisis has underlined the critical importance of undertaking reforms to strengthen the banking sector… (The) government have (sic) decided to accept the recommendations of the Narasimham Committee on Banking Sector Reforms for reducing the requirement of minimum shareholding
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