The government has received a dividend cheque of Rs  6,959.29 crore for the financial year 2023-24 from the State Bank of India (SBI).

In the year-ago period, the country’s largest lender had paid the government its highest-ever dividend of Rs 5,740 crore.

The cheque was presented to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman by SBI Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara in the presence of Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi.

SBI declared a dividend of Rs 13.70 per share for FY  2023-24, higher than Rs 11.30 per equity distributed for the previous year.

Earlier, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) approved a record dividend payout of Rs 2.11 lakh crore to the central government for FY 2023-24, up 141% from Rs 87,416 crore for FY23. The previous highest dividend payout by the RBI to the government was Rs 1.76 lakh crore in 2018-19.