Punjab National Bank is believed to have clinched the deal for taking over the ailing Industrial Finance Corporation of India.

The IFCI board has become defunct and its chairman V P Singh put in his papers after a board meeting on Friday, IFCI sources told PTI in New Delhi.

The outgoing IFCI chairman could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.

The move to merge IFCI with a big PSU bank like PNB was first announced by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh early this month.