New bank licences likely by March 31: finmin official

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India is likely to give new bank licences by March 31, 2014, Rajiv Takru, secretary of financial services, told a local news channel on Tuesday.

On Monday, the Reserve Bank of India said it had extended the validity of in-principle approval for new banks to 18 months from one year.

(Reporting by Shamik Paul and Suvashree Dey Choudhury; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)