Don't put money in foreign banks: Minister

KOLKATA: In the backdrop of the global financial crisis, West Bengal Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta on Wednesday urged people not to keep their money in foreign banks and even in banks having significant foreign equity holdings.

"Please, don't put money in foreign banks and even in Indian banks having significant holding of equity by foreign institutions, whose names I would not like to take," Dasgupta said while inaugurating a branch of a rural bank at Barasat near Kolkata.

"Your money is safe only in public sector banks, cooperative banks and regional rural banks," the minister said.

His statements came a day after the central committee of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) adopted a resolution, urging the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to take lessons from the US financial crisis.

"The CPI-M has consistently maintained that the finance-driven imperialist globalisation is unsustainable. The UPA government has been pushing for the very same policies, which have spelt ruin for the financial system in the US and many European countries," it said.

"The government has been assiduously pushing for financial sector liberalisation in the past four years. The manner in which the US is trying to solve the crisis by bailing out the investment bankers and financers at the expense of the taxpayers will only worsen the situation," it added.