154 new SBI branches on Sunday

ROHIT KHANNA
Posted: Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 0118 hrs IST
Updated: Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 0118 hrs IST

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Kolkata: State Bank of India will simultaneously open 154 branches—the most ever on a single day—and 1,540 ATMs across the country on Sunday. The new branches include one in finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s Jangipur parliamentary constituency in West Bengal.

“The branches will be inaugurated online by the finance minister,” said an officer of India’s largest bank connected with this mammoth exercise. The synchronised launch will eclipse the record 101 branches SBI opened in one day last July, which were inaugurated by then finance minister P Chidambaram.

Mukherjee will open the new branches spread across India by going online from Omarpur, a town in his constituency. SBI’s IT officials are working overtime to connect all the branches through satellite network by setting up a temporary hub in Omarpur.

“We have arranged a video conference for the minister with customers in a select few branches,” said the official. Once the FM hits a button, the locations of the new branches and ATMs indicated on an India map at the venue will start blinking. “The ATMs will also become operational from then onwards,” the official said.

In the first major drive to expand its reach since the economic slowdown, SBI’s number of branches will rise to 11,811 from 11,657. The bank has 9,502 ATMs. According to another SBI officer, the bank will open 11 branches in each of the 14 national circles in which it operates. The bank will also open 110 ATMs each in those circles.

SBI chairman OP Bhatt has said he plans to add 1,000 branches and 10,000 ATMs this fiscal and cater to 50,000 villages. SBI plans to extend banking services to 1 lakh unbanked villages by 2010. Of its total branch network, 4,447 are in rural areas.

As of March this year, SBI had a deposit base of Rs 7.42 lakh crore and an operating income of Rs 74,880 crore.

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» 154 new SBI Branches

Posted by Sanjeevi, C.N. on 2009-07-10 15:52:27.794739+05:30
I is good. But the various branches do not know what is happening inother branches. For eg. I am a "Visesh Customer" of Gopalapuram Branch inChennai. But when I went to Antop Hill Branch , the staff did not know about "Visesh Customer". There is also abnormally long waiting time in Antop Hill Branch. There shd be better coordination and, the branches open more counters to manage huge throng of customers. The exchangew of high value currency for lower denomination currency is very poor in SBI branches.

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