"We are having meeting on December 16 in Delhi," former RBI Governor Bimal Jalan, who is heading the panel said. The committee held its first meeting on November 1.

The other members of the high-level advisory committee (HLAC) are former RBI Deputy Governor Usha Thorat, former Securities and Exchange Board of India Chairman C B Bhave, and Nachiket M Mor, Director of the Central Board of Directors of RBI.

Initially, 26 entities evinced interest in entering the banking arena. Tata Sons, the holding company of Tata group, withdrew its application last month leaving 25 players in the fray.

Public sector units India Post and IFCI, private sector Anil Ambani Group and Aditya Birla group submitted applications on July 1.The RBI issued guidelines for licensing of new banks on February 22 and issued clarifications in the first week of June.

In the past 20 years, the RBI licensed only 12 banks in the private sector in two phases. Ten banks were licensed on the basis of guidelines issued in January 1993.

The guidelines were revised in January 2001 based on the experience gained from the functioning of these banks and fresh applications were invited. Kotak Mahindra Bank and Yes Bank were the last two entities to get banking licences from RBI in 2003-04.

India has 27 public sector banks, 22 private sector banks and 56 regional rural banks. In the 2001 round of guidelines for new licences, the external committee members were C G Somiah, former government auditor CAG, I G Patel, former RBI Governor, and Dipankar Basu, former head of State Bank of India.

PTI