No blanket nod sought for merging five subs with SBI: Bhatt

Country's largest lender, State Bank of India , on Wednesday said it has not sought a blanket approval from the Government for merging the remaining five subsidiaries with itself. Bank Chairman O P Bhatt said both the mergers which have been done till now -- State Bank of Indore and State Bank of Saurashtra -- have been done with prior permission on a case-to-case basis from all the concerned bodies like the respective Boards, the Government and the RBI.  "We have not sought any blanket permission for the mergers," Bhatt told reporters here when asked about a media report on Wednesday which said SBI is mulling to merge all the remaining subsidiaries in the next 12-18-months.  He further said that SBI did not meet the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance on Tuesday.  State Bank of Hyderabad , State Bank of Patiala , State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Travancoreand State Bank of Mysore are the subsidiaries which are yet to be merged with the bank and it is argued that merging them will usher economies of scale and reduce administrative costs.  On SBI's bond issue, he said that the bank has received subscriptions of around Rs 6,000-crore for its Rs 2,000-crore retail tax saving bond issue (with the green-shoe option) and expects total subscriptions to touch Rs 10,000-crore by February 28 when the issue closes.