new delhi the government on friday unveiled a mega plan to merge 10 public sector banks into four as part of plans to create fewer and stronger globalsized lenders as it looks to boost economic growth from a fiveyear lowfinance minister nirmala sitharaman who had last week announced tax sops and measures for sectors such as auto announced four new set of mergers punjab national bank oriental bank of commerce and united bank of india will combine to form the nations secondlargest lender canara bank and syndicate bank will merge union bank of india will amalgamate with andhra bank and corporation bank and indian bank will merge with allahabad bankread alsocentre announces major bank mergers highlightsnew delhi finance minister nirmala sitharaman made a series of announcements on friday to give fillip to the banking and financial sector in the country during a press conference in the national capital here are the highlights of her address punjab national bank oriental bank of commerce andgdp growth falls to over sixyear low of 5 in apriljune quarterindias gross domestic product gdp growth for the apriljune q1 quarter slowed to 5 per cent from 58 per cent in the previous quarter januarymarch data released by government on friday showed the slowdown can be largely attributed to weak consumer demand and private investment at a timethe exercise seen together with the previous two rounds of bank consolidation will bring down the number of nationalised public sector banks to 12 from 27 in 2017 this the government feels will make bank balance sheet stronger with greater capacity to lendoriental bank of commerce and united bank merger will merge into punjab national bank to create a bank with rs 1795 lakh crore business and 11437 branches sitharaman told a news conference herethe merger of syndicate bank with canara bank will create the fourth largest public sector bank with rs 1520 lakh crore business and a branch network of 10324 andhra bank and corporation banks merger with union bank of india will create indias fifth largest public sector bank with rs 1459 lakh crore business and 9609 branchesthe merger of allahabad bank with indian bank will create the seventh largest public sector bank with rs 808 lakh crore business with strong branch networks in the south north and east of the country she said adding that bank of india and central bank of india will continue to operate as beforelast year the government had merged dena bank and vijaya bank with bank of baroda creating the thirdlargest bank by loans in the countryafter the mergers the country will have 12 public sector banks including state bank of india and bank of baroda also indian overseas bank uco bank bank of maharashtra and punjab and sind bank which have strong regional focus will continue as separate entitiesthe finance minister also unveiled governance reforms in public sector banks saying their boards will be given autonomy and enabled to do succession planningalso bank boards will be given flexibility to